UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


SOUTHERN  BRANCH, 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA, 

LIBRARY, 

3,  CALIF. 


GLIMPSES  OF  THREE  COASTS. 

1  rl  t 


BY 


HELEN  JACKSON  (H.  H.), 

AUTHOR  OF  "RAMONA,"  "A  CENTURY  OF  DISHONOR,"   "VERSES,"  "SONNETS 

AND   LYRICS,"     "  HETTY'S  STRANGE   HISTORY,"     "BITS  OF  TRAVEL," 

"BITS  OF  TRAVEL  AT  HOME,"  "ZEPH,"  "MERCY  PHILBRICK's 

CHOICE,"    "BETWEEN   WHILES,"  "BITS   OF   TALK 

ABOUT  HOME  MATTERS,"  "  BITS  OF  TALK  FOR 

YOUNG     FOLKS,"     "NELLY'S     SILVER 
MINK,"     "  CAT   STORIES." 


BOSTON: 
ROBERTS    BROTHERS. 

1892. 


£6  \  G 


Copyright,  1886, 

BY  ROBERTS  BROTHERS. 


a1}  5- 

JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE. 


CONT 


CALIFORNIA.  AND  OREGON. 

PAGE 

OUTDOOR  INDUSTRIES  IN  SOUTHERN  CALIFORNIA          .  3 

FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS  WORK.     I.     II.       .         .  30 
THE  PRESENT  CONDITION  OF  THE  MISSION  INDIANS  IN 

SOUTHERN  CALIFORNIA 78 

ECHOES  IN  THE  CITY  OF  THE  ANGELS       .        .        .  103 

CHANCE  DAYS  IN  OREGON 129 


II. 

SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

A  BURNS  PILGRIMAGE 153 

GLINTS  IN  AULD  REEKIE 175 

CHESTER  STREETS    196 

III. 

NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY. 

BERGEN  DAYS 221 

FOUR  DAYS  WITH  SANNA 245 

THE  KATRINA  SAGA.    I.    II 277 

ENCYCLICALS  OF  A  TRAVELLER.     I.     II.     HI.  .         .  322 

THE  VILLAGE  OF  OBERAMMERGAU          ....  384 

THE  PASSION  PLAY  AT  OBERAMMERGAU    .        .        .  402 


CALIFORNIA  AND   OREGON. 


GLIMPSES   OF  THREE  COASTS. 


I. 

CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

OUTDOOR  INDUSTRIES  IN  SOUTHERN  CALIFORNIA. 

CLIMATE  is  to  a  country  what  temperament  is  to  a 
man,  —  Fate.  The  figure  is  not  so  fanciful  as  it  seems; 
for  temperament,  broadly  defined,  may  be  said  to  be  that 
which  determines  the  point  of  view  of  a  man's  mental 
and  spiritual  vision, — in  other  words",  the  light  in  which 
he  sees  things.  And  the  word  "climate"  is^  primarily, 
simply  a  statement  of  bounds  defined  according  to  the  ob- 
liquity of  the  sun's  course  relative  to  the  horizon,  —  in 
other  words,  the  slant  of  the  sun.  The  tropics  are  tropic 
because  the  sun  shines  down  too  straight.  Vegetation 
leaps  into  luxuriance  under  the  nearly  vertical  ray :  but 
human  activities  languish ;  intellect  is  supine ;  only  the 
passions,  human  nature's  rank  weed-growths,  thrive.  In 
the  temperate  zone,  again,  the  sun  strikes  the  earth  too 
much  aslant.  Human  activities  develop  ;  intellect  is  keen ; 
the  balance  of  passion  and  reason  is  normally  adjusted : 
but  vegetation  is  slow  and  restricted.  As  compared  with 
the  productiveness  of  the  tropics,  the  best  that  the  tem- 
perate zone  can  do  is  scanty. 

There  are  a  few  spots  on  the  globe  where  the  conditions 
of  the  country  override  these  laws,  and  do  away  with  these 
lines  of  discrimination  in  favors.  Florida,  Italy,  the  South 
of  France  and  of  Spain,  a  few  islands,  and  South  California 
complete  the  list. 


4  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

These  places  are  doubly  dowered.  They  have  the 
wealths  of  the  two  zones,  without  the  drawbacks  of  either. 
In  South  California  this  results  from  two  causes :  first,  the 
presence  of  a  temperate  current  in  the  ocean,  near  the 
coast ;  second,  the  configuration  of  the  mountain  ranges 
which  intercept  and  reflect  the  sun's  rays,  and  shut  South 
California  off  from  the  rest  of  the  continent.  It  is,  as  it 
were,  climatically  insulated,  — a  sort  of  island  on  land.  It 
has  just  enough  of  sea  to  make  its  atmosphere  temperate. 
Its  continental  position  and  affinities  give  it  a  dryness  no 
island  could  have ;  and  its  climatically  insulated  position 
gives  it  an  evenness  of  temperature  much  beyond  the 
continental  average. 

It  has  thus  a  cool  summer  and  a  temperate  winter,  — 

conditions  which  secure  the  broadest  and  highest  agrictilt- 

v     ural  and  horticultural  possibilities.     It  is  the  only  country 

\  in  the  world  where  dairies  and  orange  orchards  will  thrive 

together. 

It  has  its  own  zones  of  climate ;  not  at  all  following 
lines  parallel  to  the  equator,  but  following  the  trend  of  its 
mountains.  The  California  mountains  are  a  big  and  inter- 
esting family  of  geological  children,  with  great  gaps  in 
point  of  age,  the  Sierra  Nevada  being  oldest  of  all.  Time 
was  when  the  Sierra  Nevada  fronted  directly  on  the  Pa- 
cific, and  its  rivers  dashed  down  straight  into  the  sea. 
But  that  is  ages  ago.  Since  then  have  been  born  out  of 
the  waters  the  numerous  coast  ranges,  all  following  more 
or  less  closely  the  shore  line.  These  are  supplemented  at 
Point  Conception  by  east  and  west  ranges,  which  complete 
the  insulating  walls  of  South,  or  semi-tropic,  California. 
The  coast  ranges  are  the  youngest  of  the  children  born ; 
but  the  ocean  is  still  pregnant  of  others.  Range  after 
range,  far  out  to  sea,  they  lie,  with  their  attendant  valleys, 
biding  their  time,  popping  their  heads  out  here  and  there 
in  the  shape  of  islands. 

This  colossal  furrow  system  of  mountains  must  have  its 
correlative  system  of  valleys  ;  hence  the  great  valley'  divis- 
ions of  the  country.  There  may  be  said  to  be  four  "groups 
or  kinds  of  these :  the  low  and  broad  valleys,  so  broad 
that  they  are  plains;  the  high  mountain  valleys;  the 
rounded  plateaus  of  the  Great  Basin,  as  it  is  called,  of 
whk-h  the  Bernardino  Mountains  are  the  southern  rim ; 


OUTDOOR  INDUSTRIES  IN  CALIFORNIA.  5 

and  the  river  valleys  or  canons, — these  last  running  at 
angles  to  the  mountain  and  shore  lines. 

When  the  air  in  these  valleys  becomes  heated  by  the 
sun,  it  rushes  up  the  slopes  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  as  up  a 
mighty  chimney.  To  fill  the  vacuum  thus  created,  the  sea 
air  is  drawn  in  through  every  break:1  in  the  coast  ranges 
as  bj-  a  blower.  In  the  upper  part  of  the  California 
coast  it  sucks  in  with  fury,  as  through  the  Golden  Gate, 
piling  up  and  demolishing  high  hills  of  sand  every  year, 
and  cutting  grooves  on  the  granite  fronts  of  mountains. 

The  country  may  be  said  to  have  three  distinct  indus- 
trial belts  :  the  first,  along  the  coast,  a  narrow  one,  from 
one  to  fifteen  miles  wide.  In  this  grow  some  of  the  decid- 
uous fruits,  corn,  pumpkins,  and  grain.  Dairy  and  stock 
interests  flourish.  The  nearness  of  the  sea  makes  the  air 
cool,  with  fogs  at  night.  There  are  many  cienagas,  or 
marshy  regions,  where  grass  is  green  all  the  year  round, 
and  water  is  near  the  surface  everywhere.  Citrus  fruits 
do  not  flourish  in  this  belt,  except  in  sheltered  spots  at  the 
higher  levels. 

The  second  industrial  belt  comprises  the  shorter  val- 
leys opening  toward  the  sea  ;  a  belt  of  country  averaging 
perhaps  forty  miles  in  width.  In  this  belt  all  grains  will 
grow  without  irrigation ;  all  deciduous  fruits,  including- 
the  grape,  flourish  well  without  irrigation  ;  the  citrus  fruits 
thrive,  but  need  irrigation. 

The  third  belt  lies  back  of  this,  farther  from  the  sea ; 
and  the  land,  without  irrigation,  is  worthless  for  all  pur- 
poses except  pasturage.  That,  in  3'ears  of  average  rain- 
fall, is  good. 

The  soils  of  South  California  are  chiefly  of  the  creta- 
ceous and  tertiary  epochs.  The  most  remarkable  thing 
about  them  is  their  great  depth.  It  is  not  uncommon,  in 
making  wells,  to  find  the  soil  the  same  to  a  depth  of  one 
hundred  feet ;  the  same  thing  is  to  be  observed  in  canons, 
cuts,  and  exposed  bluffs  on  the  sea-shore.  This  accounts 
for  the  great  fertility  of  much  of  the  land.  Crops  are 
raised  year  after  year,  sometimes  for  twenty  successive 
years,  on  the  same  fields,  without  the  soil's  showing  ex- 
haustion ;  and  what  are  called  volunteer  crops,  sowing 
themselves,  give  good  yields  for  the  first,  second,  and 
even  third  year  after  the  original  planting. 


6  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

To  provide  for  a  wholesome  variety  and  succession  of 
seasons,  in  a  country  where  both  winter  and  summer  were 
debarred  full  reign,  was  a  meteorological  problem  that 
might  well  have  puzzled  even  Nature's  ingenuitj'.  But 
next  to  a  vacuum,  she  abhors  monotony  ;  and  to  avoid  it, 
she  has,  in  California,  resorted  even  to  the  water-cure,  — 
getting  her  requisite  alternation  of  seasons  by  making  one 
wet  and  the  other  dry. 

To  define  the  respective  limits  of  these  seasons  becomes 
more  and  more  difficult  the  longer  one  stays  in  California, 
and  the  more  one  studies  rain-fall  statistics.  Generally 
speaking,  the  wet  season  may  be  said  to  be  from  the 
middle  of  October  to  the  middle  of  April,  corresponding 
nearly  with  the  outside  limits  of  the  north  temperate  zone 
season  of  snows.  A  good  description  of  the  two  seasons 
would  be  —  and  it  is  not  so  purely  humorous  and  un- 
scientific as  it  sounds  —  that  the  wet  season  is  the  sea- 
son in  which  it  can  rain,  but  majT  not ;  and  the  dry  season 
is  the  season  in  which  it  cannot  rain,  but  occasionally 
does. 

Sometimes  the  rains  expected  and  hoped  for  in  October 
do  not  begin  until  March,  and  the  whole  country  is  in 
anxiety ;  a  drought  in  the  wet  season  meaning  drought  for 
a  year,  and  great  losses.  There  have  been  such  years  in 
California,  and  the  dread  of  them  is  well  founded.  But 
often  the  rains,  coming  later  than  their  wont,  are  so  full 
and  steady  that  the  requisite  number  of  inches  fall,  and 
the  year's  supply  is  made  good.  The  average  rain-fall 
in  San  Diego  County  is  ten  inches;  in  Los  Angeles, 
San  Bernardino,  and  Ventura  counties,  fifteen ;  in  Santa 
Barbara,  twenty.  These  five  counties  are  all  that  prop- 
erly come  under  the  name  of  South  California,  resting 
the  division  on  natural  and  climatic  grounds.  The  po- 
litical division,  if  ever  made,  will  be  based  on  other 
than  natural  or  climatic  reasons,  and  will  include  two, 
possibly  three,  more  counties. 

The  pricelessness  of  water  in  a  land  where  no  rain  falls 
during  six  months  of  the  year  cannot  be  appreciated  by 
one  who  has  not  lived  in  such  a  country.  There  is  a  say- 
ing in  South  California  that  if  a  man  buys  water  he  can 
*M  his  land  thrown  in.  This  is  only  an  epigrammatic 
putting  of  the  literal  fact  that  the  value  of  much  of 


OUTDOOR  INDUSTRIES  IN  CALIFORNIA.  1 

the  land  depends  solely  upon  the  water  which  it  holds  or 
controls. 

Four  S3'stems  of  irrigation  are  practised :  First,  flooding 
the  land.  This  is  possible  only  in  flat  districts,  where 
there  are  large  heads  of  water.  It  is  a  wasteful  method, 
and  is  less  and  less  used  each  year.  The  second  system 
is  by  furrows.  By  this  system  a  large  head  of  water  is 
brought  upon  the  land  and  distributed  in  small  streams  in 
many  narrow  furrows.  The  streams  are  made  as  small 
as  will  run  across  the  ground,  and  are  allowed  to  run  only 
twenty-four  hours  at  a  time.  The  third  system  is  by 
basins  dug  around  tree  roots.  To  these  basins  water  is 
brought  by  pipes  or  ditches ;  or,  in  mountain  lands,  by 
flumes.  The  fourth  system  is  by  sub-irrigation.  This  is 
the  most  expensive  system  of  all,  but  is  thought  to  econo- 
mize water.  The  water  is  carried  in  pipes  laid  from  two 
to  three  feet  under  ground.  By  opening  valves  in  these 
pipes  the  water  is  let  out  and  up,  but  never  comes  above 
the  surface. 

The  appliances  of  one  sort  and  another  belonging  to 
these  irrigation  sj'stems  add  much  to  the  picturesqueness 
of  South  California  landscapes.  Even  the  huge,  tower- 
like,  round-fanned  windmills  by  which  the  water  is  pumped 
up  are  sometimes,  spite  of  their  clumsiness,  made  effective 
by  ga3*  colors  and  by  vines  growing  on  them.  If  they  had 
broad,  stretching  arms,  like  the  Holland  windmills,  the 
whole  country  would  seem  a-flutter. 

The  history  of  the  industries  of  South  California  since 
the  American  occupation  is  interesting  in  its  record  of  suc- 
cessions, —  successions,  not  the  result  of  human  interven- 
tions and  decisions  so  much  as  of  climatic  fate,  which,  in 
epoch  after  epoch,  created  different  situations. 

The  history  begins  with  the  cattle  interest ;  hardly  an 
industry,  perhaps,  or  at  an}'  rate  an  unindustrious  one,  but 
belonging  in  point  of  time  at  the  head  of  the  list  of  the 
ways  and  means  by  which  money  has  been  made  in  the 
country.  It  dates  back  to  the  old  mission  days  ;  to  the  two 
hundred  head  of  cattle  which  the  wise  Galvez  brought,  in 
1769,  for  stocking  the  three  missions  projected  in  Upper 
California. 

From  these  had  grown,  in  the  sixty  years  of  the  friars' 
unhindered  rule,  herds,  of  which  it  is  no  exaggeration  to 


8  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

say  that  they  covered  thousands  of  hills  and  were  beyond 
counting.  It  is  probable  that  even  the  outside  estimates  of 
their  numbers  were  short  of  the  truth.  The  cattle  wealth, 
the  reckless  ruin  of  the  secularization  period,  survived,  and 
was  the  leading  wealth  of  the  country  at  the  time  of  its 
surrender  to  the  United  States.  It  was  most  wastefully 
handled.  The  cattle  were  killed,  as  they  had  been  in  the 
mission  days,  simply  for  their  hides  and  tallow.  Kingdoms 
full  of  people  might  have  been  fed  on  the  beef  which  rotted 
on  the  ground  every  year,  and  the  California  cattle  ranch 
in  which  either  milk  or  butter  could  be  found  was  an 
exception  to  the  rule. 

Into  the  calm  of  this  half-barbaric  life  broke  the  fierce 
excitement  of  the  gold  discovery  in  1849.  The  swarming 
hordes  of  ravenous  miners  must  be  fed ;  beef  meant  gold. 
The  cattlemen  suddenly  found  in  their  herds  a  new  source 
of  undreamed-of  riches.  Cattle  had  been  sold  as  low  as 
two  dollars  and  a  half  a  head.  When  the  gold  fever  was 
at  its  highest,  there  were  days  and  places  in  which  they 
sold  for  three  hundred.  It  is  not  strange  that  the  rancheros 
lost  their  heads,  grew  careless  and  profligate. 

Then  came  the  drought  of  1864,  which  killed  off  cattle 
by  thousands  of  thousands.  By  thousands  they  were  driven 
over  steep  places  into  the  sea  to  save  pasturage,  and  to 
save  the  country  from  the  stench  and  the  poison  of  their 
dying  of  hunger.  In  April  of  that  year,  fifty  thousand 
head  were  sold  in  Santa  Barbara  for  thirty-seven  and  a 
half  cents  a  head.  Many  of  the  rancheros  were  ruined ; 
they  had  to  mortgage  their  lands  to  live ;  their  stock  was 
gone  ;  the}-  could  not  farm  ;  values  so  sank,  that  splendid 
rstnti's  were  not  worth  over  ten  cents  an  acre. 

Then  came  in  a  new  set  of  owners.  From  the  north  and 
from  the  interior  poured  in  the  thriftier  sheep  men,  with 
big  flocks  ;  and  for  a  few  years  the  wide  belt  of  good  pas- 
turage land  along  the  coast  was  chiefly  a  sheep  country. 

Slowly  farmers  followed;  settling,  in  the  beginning, 
around  town  centres  such  as  Los  Angeles,  Santa  Barbara, 
Ventura.  Grains  and  vegetables  were  grown  for  a  resource 
when  cattle  and  sheep  should  fail.  Cows  needed  water  all 
the  year  round ;  corn  only  a  few  months.  A  wheat-field 
iiii^ht  get  time  to  ripen  in  a  year  when  by  reason  of  a 
drought  a  herd  of  cattle  would  die. 


OUTDOOR  INDUSTRIES  IN  CALIFORNIA.  9 

Thus  the  destiny  of  the  country  steadily  went  on  toward 
its  fulfilling,  because  the  inexorable  logic  of  the  situation 
forced  itself  into  the  minds  of  the  population.  From  grains 
and  vegetables  to  fruits  was  a  short  and  natural  step,  in 
the  balmy  air,  under  the  sunny  sky,  and  with  the  tradi- 
tions and  relics  of  the  old  friars'  opulent  fruit  growths  lin- 
gering all  through  the  land.  Each  palm,  orange-tree,  and 
vineyard  left  on  the  old  mission  sites  was  a  wa3'-signal  to 
the  new  peoples  ;  mute,  yet  so  eloquent,  the  wonder  is  that 
so  many  years  should  have  elapsed  before  the  road  began 
to  be  thronged. 

Such,  in  brief,  is  the  chronicle  of  the  development  of  L/ 
South  California's  outdoor  industries  down  to  the  present 
time ;  of  the  successions  through  which  the  country  has 
been  making  readj*  to  become  what  it  will  surely  be,  the 
Garden  of  the  world,  —  a  garden  with  which  no  other  coun- 
try can  vie  ;  a  garden  in  which  will  grow,  side  by  side,  the 
grape  and  the  pumpkin,  the  pear  and  the  orange,  the  olive 
and  the  apple,  the  strawberry  and  the  lemon,  Indian  corn 
and  the  banana,  wheat  and  the  guava. 

The  leading  position  which  the  fruit  interest  will  ulti- 
mately take  has  been  reached  only  in  Los  Angeles  County. 
There  the  four  chief  industries,  ranged  according  to  their 
relative  importance,  stand  as  follows :  Fruit,  grain,  wool, 
stock,  and  dairy.  This  county  may  be  said  to  be  pre-emi- 
nently the  garden  of  the  Garden.  No  other  of  the  five 
counties  can  compete  with  it.  Its  fruit  harvest  is  nearly 
unintermitted  all  the  }-ear  round.  The  main  orange  crop 
ripens  from  January  to  May,  though  oranges  hang  on  the 
trees  all  the  year.  The  lemon,  lime,  and  citron  ripen  and 
hang,  like  the  orange.  Apricots,  pears,  peaches,  necta- 
rines, strawberries,  currants,  and  figs  are  plentiful  in  June  ; 
apples,  pears,  peaches,  during  July  and  August.  Late  in 
July  grapes  begin,  and  last  till  January.  September  is  the 
best  month  of  all,  having  grapes,  peaches,  pomegranates, 
walnuts,  almonds,  and  a  second  crop  of  figs.  From  late 
in  August  till  Christmas,  the  vintage  does  not  cease. 

The  county  has  a  sea-coast  line  of  one  hundred  miles, 
and  contains  three  millions  of  acres  ;  two  thirds  mountain 
and  desert,  the  remaining  million  good  pasturage  and  til- 
lable land.  What  is  known  as  the  great  Los  Angeles  val- 
ley has  an  area  of  about  sixty  miles  in  length  by  thirty  in 


10  CALIFORNIA   AND  OREGON. 

width,  and  contains  the  three  rivers  of  the  county,  —  the 
Los  Angeles,  the  Santa  Ana,  and  the  San  Gabriel.  Every 
drop  of  the  water  of  these  rivers  and  of  the  numberless 
little  springs  and  streams  ministering  to  their  system  is 
owned,  rated,  utilized,  and,  one  might  almost  add,  wran- 
gled over.  The  chapters  of  these  water  litigations  are 
many  and  full ;  and  it  behooves  every  new  settler  in  the 
county  to  inform  himself  on  that  question  first  of  all,  and 
thoroughly. 

In  the  Los  Angeles  valley  lie  several  lesser  valleys,  fer- 
tile and  beautiful ;  most  notable  of  these,  the  San  Gabriel 
valley,  where  was  the  site  of  the  old  San  Gabriel  Mission, 
twelve  miles  east  of  the  town  of  Los  Angeles.  This  valley 
is  now  taken  up  in  large  ranches,  or  in  colonies  of  settlers 
banded  together  for  mutual  help  and  security  in  matter  of 
water  rights.  This  colony  feature  is  daily  becoming  more 
and  more  an  important  one  in  the  development  of  the  whole 
country.  Small  individual  proprietors  cannot  usually  afford 
the  purchase  of  sufficient  water  to  make  horticultural  enter- 
prises successful  or  safe.  The  incorporated  colon}',  there- 
fore, offers  advantages  to  large  numbers  of  settlers  of  a 
class  that  could  not  otherwise  get  foothold  in  the  country, 
—  the  men  of  comparatively  small  means,  who  expect  to 
work  with  their  hands  and  await  patiently  the  slow  growth 
of  moderate  fortunes,  —  a  most  useful  and  abiding  class, 
making  a  solid  basis  for  prosperity.  Some  of  the  best 
results  in  South  California  have  already  been  attained  in 
colonies  of  this  sort,  such  as  Anaheim,  Riverside,  and 
Pasadena.  The  method  is  regarded  with  increasing  favor. 
It  is  a  rule  of  give  and  take,  which  works  equally  well  for 
both  country  and  settlers. 

The  South  California  statistics  of  fruits,  grain,  wool, 
honey,  etc.,  read  more  like  fancy  than  like  fact,  and  are 
not  readily  believed  by  one  unacquainted  with  the  country. 
The  only  way  to  get  a  real  comprehension  and  intelligent 
acceptance  of  them  is  to  study  them  on  the  ground.  By  a 
single  visit  to  a  great  ranch  one  is  more  enlightened  than 
he  would  be  by  committing  to  memory  scores  of  Equaliza- 
tion Board  Reports.  One  of  the  very  best,  if  not  the  best, 
for  this  purpose  is  Baldwin's  ranch,  in  the  San  Gabriel 
valley.  It  includes  a  large  part  of  the  old  lands  of  the  San 
Gabriel  Mission,  and  is  a  principality  in  itself. 


OUTDOOR  INDUSTRIES  IN  CALIFORNIA.         11 

There  are  over  a  hundred  men  on  its  pay-roll,  which 
averages  $4,000  a  month.  Another  $4,000  does  not  more 
than  meet  its  running  expenses.  It  has  $6,000  worth  of 
machinery  for  its  grain  harvests  alone.  It  has  a  dairy  of 
fort}'  cows,  Jerse}r  and  Durham ;  one  hundred  and  twenty 
work-horses  and  mules,  and  fifty  thoroughbreds. 

It  is  divided  into  four  distinct  estates  :  the  Santa  Anita, 
of  16,000  acres;  Puente,  18,000;  Merced,  20,000;  and 
the  Potrero,  25,000.  The  Puente  and  Merced  are  sheep 
ranches,  and  have  20,000  sheep  on  them.  The  Potrero  is 
rented  out  to  small  farmers.  The  Santa  Anita  is  the  home 
estate.  On  it  are  the  homes  of  the  family  and  of  the 
laborers.  It  has  fifteen  hundred  acres  of  oak  grove,  four 
thousand  acres  in  grain,  five  hundred  in  grass  for  hay,  one 
hundred  and  fifty  in  orange  orchards,  fifty  of  almond  trees, 
sixty  of  walnuts,  twenty-five  of  pears,  fifty  of  peaches, 
twenty  of  lemons,  and  five  hundred  in  vines ;  also  small 
orchards  of  chestnuts,  hazel-nuts,  and  apricots  ;  and  thou- 
sands of  acres  of  good  pasturage. 

From  whatever  side  one  approaches  Santa  Anita  in  May, 
he  will  drive  through  a  wild  garden,  —  asters,  yellow  and 
white ;  scarlet  pentstemons,  blue  larkspur,  monk's-hood ; 
lupines,  white  and  blue ;  gorgeous  golden  eschscholtzia, 
alder,  wild  lilac,  white  sage,  —  all  in  riotous  flowering. 

Entering  the  ranch  by  one  of  the  north  gates,  he  will 
look  southward  down  gentle  slopes  of  orchards  and  vine- 
yards far  across  the  valley,  the  tints  growing  softer  and 
softer,  and  blending  more  and  more  with  each  mile,  till  all 
melt  into  a  blue  or  purple  haze.  Driving  from  orchard  to 
orchard,  clown  half-mile  avenues  through  orchards  skirting 
seemingly  endless  stretches  of  vine3*ard,  he  begins  to  real- 
ize what  comes  of  planting  trees  and  vines  by  hundreds 
and  tens  of  hundreds  of  acres,  and  the  Equalization  Board 
Statistics  no  longer  appear  to  him  even  large.  It  does  not 
seem  wonderful  that  Los  Angeles  County  should  be  re- 
ported as  having  sixty-two  hundred  acres  in  vines,  when 
here  on  one  man's  ranch  are  five  hundred  acres.  The  last 
Equalization  Board  Report  said  the  county  had  256,135 
orange  and  41,250  lemon  trees.  It  would  hardly  have  sur- 
prised him  to  be  told  that  there  were  as  many  as  that  in 
the  Santa  Anita  groves  alone.  The  effect  on  the  eye  of 
such  huge  tracts,  planted  with  a  single  sort  of  tree,"  is  to 


12  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

increase  enormously  the  apparent  size  of  the  tract ;  the 
mind  stumbles  on  the  very  threshold  of  the  attempt  to 
reckon  its  distances  and  numbers,  and  they  become  vaster 
and  vaster  as  they  grow  vague. 

Tin-  orange  orchard  is  not  the  unqualifiedly  beautiful 
spectacle  one  dreams  it  will  be ;  nor,  in  fact,  is  it  so  beau- 
tiful as  it  ought  to  be,  with  its  evergreen  shining  foliage, 
snowy  blossoms,  and  golden  fruit  hanging  together  and 
lavishly  all  the  year  round.  I  fancy  that  if  travellers  told 
truth,  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  would  confess  to  a 
grievous  disappointment  at  their  first  sight  of  the  orange 
at  home.  In  South  California  the  trees  labor  under  the 
great  disadvantage  of  being  surrounded  by  bare  brown 
earth.  How  much  this  dulls  their  effect  one  realizes  on 
finding  now  and  then  a  neglected  grove  where  grass  has 
been  allowed  to  grow  under  the  trees,  to  their  ruin  as  fruit- 
beurers,  but  incomparably  heightening  their  beauty.  An- 
other fatal  defect  in  the  orange-tree  is  its  contour.  It  is 
too  round,  too  stout  for  its  height ;  almost  as  bad  a  thing 
in  a  tree  as  in  a  human  being.  The  uniformity  of  this  con- 
tour of  the  trees,  combined  with  the  regularity  of  their 
setting  in  eventy  spaced  rows,  gives  large  orange  groves  a 
certain  tiresome  quality,  which  one  recognizes  with  a  guilty 
sense  of  being  shamefully  ungrateful  for  so  much  splendor 
of  sheen  and  color.  The  exact  spherical  shape  of  the  fruit 
possibly  helps  on  this  tiresomeness.  One  wonders  if  ob- 
long bunches  of  long-pointed  and  curving  fruit,  banana- 
like,  set  irregularly  among  the  glossy  green  leaves,  would 
not  look  better ;  which  wonder  adds  to  ingratitude  an  im- 
pertinence, of  which  one  suddenly  repents  on  seeing  such 
a  tree  as  I  saw  in  a  Los  Angeles  garden  in  the  winter  of 
1882,  —  a  tree  not  over  thirty  feet  high,  with  twenty-five 
hundred  golden  oranges  hanging  on  it,  among  leaves  so 
glossy  they  glittered  in  the  sun  with  the  glitter  of  burnished 
metal  Never  the  Hesperides  saw  a  more  resplendent 
sight. 

But  the  orange  looks  its  best  plucked  and  massed ;  it 
lends  itself  then  to  every  sort  and  extent  of  decoration. 
At  a  citrus  fair  in  the  Riverside  colony  in  March,  1882,  in 
a  building  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  long  by  sixty  wide, 
built  of  redwood  planks,  were  five  long  tables  loaded  with 
oranges  and  lemons  ;  rows,  plates,  pyramids,  baskets  ;  the 


OUTDOOR  INDUSTRIES  IN  CALIFORNIA.         13 

bright  redwood  walls  hung  with  great  boughs,  full  as 
when  broken  from  the  tree ;  and  each  plate  and  pj-ramid 
decorated  with  the  shining  green  leaves.  The  whole  place 
was  fairly  ablaze,  and  made  one  think  of  the  Arabian 
Nights'  Tales.  The  acme  of  success  in  orange  culture  in 
California  is  said  to  have  been  attained  in  this  Riverside 
colon}-,  though  it  is  only  six  years  old,  and  does  not  yet 
number  two  thousand  souls.  There  are  in  its  orchards 
209,000  orange-trees,  of  which  28,000  are  in  bearing, 
20,000  lemon  trees,  and  8,000  limes. 

The  profits  of  orange  culture  are  slow  to  begin,  but, 
having  once  begun,  mount  up  fast.  Orange  orchards  at 
San  Gabriel  have  in  man}'  instances  netted  $500  an  acre 
annualh'.  The  following  estimate,  the  result  of  sixteen 
years'  experience,  is  probably  a  fair  one  of  the  outlay  and 
income  of  a  small  orange  grove  :  — 

10  acres  of  land,  at  $75  per  acre $750.00 

1000  trees,  at  875  per  hundred 760.00 

Ploughing  and  harrowing,  §2.50  per  acre    ....  25.00 

Digging  holes,  planting,  10  cents  each 100.00 

Irrigating  and  planting 10.00 

Cultivation  after  irrigation 4.50 

3  subsequent  irrigations  during  the  year      ....  30.00 

8  subsequent  cultivations  the  first  year 13.50 

Total  cost,  first  year      §1,683.00 

This  estimate  of  cost  of  land  is  based  on  the  price  of  the  best 
lands  in  the  San  Gabriel  valley.  Fair  lands  can  be  bought  in 
other  sections  at  lower  prices. 

Second  year.  —  An  annual  ploughing  in  January      .  $25.00 

Four  irrigations  during  year 40.00 

Six  cultivations  during  year 27.00 

Third  year 125.00 

Fourth  year 150.00 

Fifth  year 200.00 

Interest  on  investment 1,000.00 

Total   ...'....' $3,250.00 

If  first-class,  healthy,  thrifty  budded  trees  are  planted,  they 
•will  begin  to  fruit  the  second  year.  The  third  year,  a  few 
boxes  may  be  marketed.  The  fourth  year,  there  will  be  an 
average  yield  of  at  least  75  oranges  to  the  tree,  which  will  equal: 


14  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

75  000,  at  $10  per  thousand  net $750.00 

The  fifth  year,  250  per  tree,  250,000,  at  $10  per 
thousand 2,oOO.OO 

Total $3,250.00 

The  orchard  is  now  clear  gain,  allowing  $1,000  as  interest  on 
the  investment.  The  increase  in  the  volume  of  production  will 
continue,  until  at  the  end  of  the  tenth  year  an  average  of  1,000 
oranges  to  a  tree  would  not  be  an  extraordinary  yield. 

To  all  these  formulas  of  reckoning  should  be  added  one 
with  the  algebraic  x  representing  the  unknown  quantity, 
and  standing  for  insect  enemies  at  large.  Each  kind  of 
fruit  has  its  own,  which  must  be  fought  with  eternal  vigi- 
lance. No  port,  in  any  country,  has  more  rigid  laws  of 
quarantine  than  are  now  enforced  in  California  against 
these  insect  enemies.  Grafts,  cuttings,  fruit,  if  even  sus- 
pected, are  seized  and  compelled  to  go  through  as  severe 
disinfecting  processes  as  if  they  were  Cuban  passengers 
fresh  from  a  yellow  fever  epidemic. 

The  orange's  worst  enemy  is  a  curious  insect,  the  scale- 
bug.  It  looks  more  like  a  mildew  than  like  anything  alive  ; 
is  usually  black,  sometimes  red.  Nothing  but  violent  treat- 
ment with  tobacco  will  eradicate  it.  Worse  than  the 
scale-bug,  in  that  he  works  out  of  sight  underground,  is 
the  gopher.  He  has  gnawed  every  root  of  a  tree  bare  be- 
fore a  tooth-mark  on  the  trunk  suggests  his  presence,  and 
then  it  is  too  late  to  save  the  tree.  The  rabbit  also  is  a 
pernicious  ally  in  the  barking  business  ;  he,  however,  be- 
ing shy,  soon  disappears  from  settled  localities ;  but  the 
gopher  stands  not  in  fear  of  man  or  men.  Only  persist- 
ent strychnine,  on  his  door-sills  and  thrust  down  his  wind- 
ing stairs,  will  save  the  orchard  in  which  he  has  founded  a 
community. 

The  almond  and  the  walnut  orchards  are  beautiful  feat- 
ures in  the  landscape  all  the  year  round,  no  less  in  the 
winter,  when  their  branches  are  naked,  than  in  the  season 
of  their  full  leaf  and  bearing.  In  fact,  the  broad  spaces 
of  filmy  gray  made  by  their  acres  when  leafless  are  deli- 
cious values  in  contrast  with  the  solid  green  of  the  orange 
orchards.  The  exquisite  revelation  of  tree  systems  which 
stripped  boughs  give  is  seen  to  more  perfect  advantage 


OUTDOOR  INDUSTRIES  IN  CALIFORNIA.        15 

against  a  warm  sky  than  a  cold  one,  and  is  heightened  in 
effect  standing  side  by  side  with  the  flowing  green  pepper- 
trees  and  purple  eucalyptus. 

In  the  time  of  blossoms,  an  almond  orchard,  seen  from 
a  distance,  is  like  nothing  so  much  as  a  rosy-white  cloud, 
floated  off  a  sunset  and  spread  on  the  earth.  Seen  nearer, 
it  is  a  pink  snow-storm,  arrested  and  set  on  stalks,  with 
an  orchestra  buzz  of  bees  filling  the  air. 

It  is  a  pity  that  the  almond-tree  should  not  be  more  re- 
paying ;  for  it  will  be  a  sore  loss  to  the  beaut}-  of  the  coun- 
try when  the  orchards  are  gone,  and  this  is  only  a  question 
of  time.  They  are  being  uprooted  and  cast  out.  The 
crop  is  a  disappointing  one,  of  uncertain  yield,  and  trouble- 
some to  prepare.  The  n-jts  must  be  five  times  handled : 
first  picked,  then  shucked,  then  dried,  then  bleached,  and 
then  again  dried.  After  the  first  drying,  they  are  dipped 
by  basketfuls  into  hot  water,  then  poured  into  the  bleach- 
ers, —  boxes  with  perforated  bottoms.  Underneath  these 
is  a  sulphur  fire  to  which  the  nuts  must  be  exposed  for  fif- 
teen or  twenty  minutes.  Then  they  are  again  spread  in  a 
drying-house.  The  final  gathering  them  up  to  send  to 
market  makes  really  a  sixth  handling ;  and  after  all  is 
said  and  done,  the  nuts  are  not  very  good,  being  flavorless 
in  comparison  with  those  .grown  in  Europe. 

The  walnut  orchard  is  a  better  investment,  and  no  less 
a  delight  to  the  eye.  While  young,  the  walnut-tree  is 
graceful ;  when  old,  it  is  stately.  It  is  a  sturdy  bearer, 
and  if  it  did  not  bear  at  all,  would  be  worth  honorable  place 
and  room  on  large  estates,  simply  for  its  avenues  of  gen- 
erous shade.  It  is  planted  in  the  seed,  and  transplanted 
at  two  or  three  years  old,  with  only  twenty-seven  trees  to 
an  acre.  The}'  begin  to  bear  at  ten  years,  reach  full  bear- 
ing at  fifteen,  and  do  not  give  sign  of  failing  at  fifty. 

Most  interesting  of  all  South  California's  outdoor  indus- 
tries is  the  grape  culture.  To  speak  of  grape  culture  is  to 
enter  upon  a  subject  which  needs  a  volume.  Its  history, 
its  riches,  past  and  prospective,  its  methods,  its  beautiful 
panorama  of  pictures,  each  by  itself  is  worth  study  and 
exhaustive  treatment.  Since  the  days  of  Eschol,  the  vine 
and  the  vineyard  have  been  honored  in  the  thoughts  and 
the  imaginations  of  men;  they  furnished  shapes  and 
designs  for  the  earliest  sacred  decorations  in  the  old  dis- 


16  CALIFORNIA  AND   OREGON. 

|K'Ms:ition,  and  suggestions  and  symbols  for  divine  para- 
bles in  the  new.  No  age  has  been  without  them,  and  no 
country  whose  sun  was  warm  enough  to  make  them  thrive. 
It  is  safe  to  predict  that  so  long  as  the  visible  frame  of 
the  earth  endures,  "  wine  to  make  glad  the  heart  of  man" 
will  be  made,  loved,  celebrated,  and  sung. 

To  form  some  idea  of  California's  future  wealth  from 
the  grape  culture,  it  is  only  necessary  to  reflect  on  the  ex- 
tent of  her  grape-growing  country  as  compared  with  that 
of  France.  In  France,  before  the  da}*s  of  the  phylloxera, 
5,000,000  of  people  were  supported  entirely  by  the  grape 
industry^  and  the  annual  average  of  the  wine  crop  was 
2,000,000,000  gallons,  with  a  value  of  $400,000,000. 
The  annual  wine-yield  of  California  is  already  estimated 
at  about  10,000,000  gallons.  Nearly  one  third  of  this  is 
made  in  South  California,  chiefly  in  Los  Angeles  County, 
where  the  grape  culture  is  steadily  on  the  increase,  five 
millions  of  new  vines  having  been  set  out  in  the  spring  of 
1882. 

The  vineyards  offer  more  variety  to  the  eye  than  the 
orange  orchards.  In  winter,  when  leafless,  they  are  gro- 
tesque ;  their  stocky,  twisted,  hunchback  stems  looking  like 
Hindoo  idols  or  deformed  imps,  no  two  alike  in  a  square 
mile,  all  weird,  fantastic,  uncanny.  Their  first  leafing  out 
does  not  do  away  with  this  ;  the  imps  seem  simply  to  have 
put  np  green  umbrellas ;  but  presently  the  leaves  widen 
and  lap,  hiding  the  uncouth  trunks,  and  spreading  over  all 
the  vineyard  a  beautiful,  tender  green,  with  lights  and 
shades  breaking  exquisitely  in  the  hollows  and  curves  of 
the  great  leaves.  From  this  on,  through  all  the  stages 
of  blossoms  and  seed-setting,  till  the  clusters  are  so  big 
and  purple  that  they  gleam  out  everywhere  between  the 
leaves,  —  sometimes  forty-five  pounds  on  a  single  vine,  if 
the  vine  is  irrigated,  twelve  if  it  is  left  to  itself.  Eight 
tons  of  grapes  off  one  acre  have  been  taken  in  the  Baldwin 
ranch.  There  were  made  there,  in  1881,  100,000  gallons 
of  wine  and  50,000  of  brandy.  The  vintage  begins  late  in 
August,  and  lasts  many  weeks,  some  varieties  of  grapes 
ripening  later  than  others.  The  vineyards  are  thronged 
with  Mexican  and  Indian  pickers.  The  Indians  come  in 
bands,  and  pitch  their  tents  just  outside  the  vineyard. 
They  are  go.nl  workers.  The  wine-cellars  and  the  '-Teat 


OUTDOOR  INDUSTRIES  IN  CALIFORNIA.         17 

crushing-vats  tell  the  vir^ards'  story  more  emphatically 
even  than  the  statistical  figures.  A  vat  that  will  hold 
1,000  gallons  piled  full  of  grapes,  huge  wire  wheels  driving 
round -and  round  in  the  spurting,  foaming  mass,  the  juice  fly- 
ing off  through  trough-like  shoots  on  each  side  into  seventy 
great  vats ;  below,  breathless  men  working  the  wheels, 
loads  of  grapes  coming  up  momently  and  being  poured 
into  the  swirling  vat,  the  whole  air  reeking  with  winy 
flavor.  The  scene  makes  earth  seem  young  again,  old 
mythologies  real ;  and  one  would  not  wonder  to  see  Bac- 
chus and  his  leopards  come  bowling  up,  with  shouting  Pan 
behind. 

The  cellars  are  still,  dark,  and  fragrant.  Forty-eight 
great  oval-shaped  butts,  ten  feet  in  diameter,  holding  2,100 
gallons  each,  I  counted  in  one  cellar.  The  butts  are  made 
of  Michigan  oak,  and  have  a  fine  yellow  color,  which  con- 
trasts well  with  the  red  stream  of  the  wine  when  it  is  drawn. 

Notwithstanding  the  increase  of  the  grape  culture,  the 
price  of  grapes  is  advancing,  some  estimates  making  it 
forty  per  cent  higher  than  it  was  five  years  ago.  It  is 
a  quicker  and  probably  a  more  repaying  industry  than 
orange-growing.  It  is  reckoned  that  a  vineyard  in  its 
fourth  year  will  produce  two  tons  to  the  acre ;  in  the 
seventh  year,  four ;  the  fourth  year  it  will  be  profitable, 
reckoning  the  cost  of  the  vineyard  at  sixty  dollars  an 
acre,  exclusive  of  the  first  cost  of  the  land.  The  annual 
expense  of  cultivation,  picking,  and  handling  is  about 
twenty-five  dollars.  The  rapid  increase  of  this  culture 
has  been  marvellous.  In  1848  there  were  only  200,000 
vines  in  all  California ;  in  1862  there  were  9,500,000 ;  in 
1881,  64,000,000,  of  which  at  least  34,000,000  are  in  full 
bearing. 

Such  facts  and  figures  are  distressing  to  the  advocates 
of  total  abstinence  ;  but  they  may  take  heart  in  the  thought 
that  a  by  no  means  insignificant  proportion  of  these  grapes 
will  be  made  into  raisins,  canned,  or  eaten  fresh. 

The  raisin  crop  was  estimated  at  160,000  boxes  for 
1881.  Many  grape-growers  believe  that  in  raisin-making 
will  ultimately  be  found  the  greatest  profit.  The  Ameri- 
cans are  a  raisin-eating  people.  From  Malaga  alone  are 
imported  annually  into  the  United  States  about  ten  tons 
of  raisins,  one  half  tile  entire  crop  of  the  Malaga  raisin 
2 


18  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

district.  This  district  has  an  area  of  only  about  four  hun- 
dred square  miles.  In  California  an  area  of  at  least  twenty 
thousand  squ;  He  miles  is  adapted  to  the  raisin. 

A  moderate  estimate  of  the  entire  annual  grape  crop  of 
California  is  119,000  tons.  "  Allowing  60,000  tons  to  be 
u^'.l  in  making  wines,  2,000  tons  to  be  sent  fresh  to  the 
Eastern  States,  and  5,000  tons  to  be  made  into  raisins, 
there  would  still  remain  52,000  tons  to  be  eaten  fresh  or 
wasted,  —  more  than  one  hundred  pounds  for  each  resident 
of  California,  including  children." 1 

The  California  wines  are  as  yet  of  inferior  quality.  A 
variet}'  of  still  wines  and  three  champagnes  are  made  ;  but 
even  the  best  are  looked  on  with  distrust  and  disfavor  by 
connoisseurs,  and  until  they  greatly  improve  they  will  not 
command  a  ready  market  in  America.  At  present  it  is 
to  be  feared  that  a  large  proportion  of  them  are  sold  under 
foreign  labels. 

Prominent  among  the  minor  industries  is  honey-making. 
From  the  great  variety  of  flowers  and  their  spicy  flavor, 
especially  from  the  aromatic  sages,  the  honey  is  said  to 
have  a  unique  and  delicious  taste,  resembling  that  of  the 
famous  honey  of  Hymettus. 

The  crop  for  1881,  in  the  four  southern  counties,  was 
estimated  at  three  millions  of  pounds ;  a  statistic  that 
must  seem  surprising  to  General  Fremont,  who,  in  his  re- 
port to  Congress  of  explorations  on  the  Pacific  coast  in 
1844,  stated  that  the  honey-bee  could  not  exist  west  of  the 
Sierra  Nevadas. 

The  bee  ranches  are  always  picturesque  ;  the}'  are  usually 
in  canons  or  on  wooded  foot-hills,  and  their  villages  of  tiny 
bright-colored  hives  look  like  gajr  Lilliputian  encampments. 
It  has  appeared  to  me  that  men  becoming  guardians  of 
bees  acquire  a  peculiar  calm  philosophy,  and  are  superior 
to  other  farmers  and  outdoor  workers.  It  would  not  seem 
unnatural  that  the  profound  respect  they  are  forced  to 
rntcrtuin  for  insects  so  small  and  so  wholly  at  their  mercy 
should  give  them  enlarged  standards  in  many  things ; 
uliovc  all,  should  breed  in  them  a  fine  and  just  humility 
toward  all  creatures. 

1  John  G.  Hittell's  Commerce  and  Industries  of  the  Pacific  Coast. 


OUTDOOR  INDUSTRIES  IN   CALIFORNIA.         19 

A  striking  instance  of  this  is  to  be  seen  in  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  canons  of  the  San  Gabriel  valley,  where, 
living  in  a  three-roomed,  redwood  log  cauih,  with  a  vine- 
covered  booth  in  front,  is  an  old  man  kings  might  envy. 

He  had  a  soldier's  warranty  deed  for  one  hundred  and 
sixty  acres  of  land,  and  he  elected  to  take  his  estate  at 
the  head  of  a  brook-swept  gorge,  four  fifths  precipice  and 
rock.  In  the  two  miles  between  his  cabin  and  the  mouth 
of  the  gorge,  the  trail  and  the  brook  change  sides  sixteen 
times.  When  the  brook  is  at  its  best,  the  trail  goes  under 
altogether,  and  there  is  no  getting  up  or  down  the  canon. 
Here,  with  a  village  of  bees  for  companions,  the  old  man 
has  lived  for  a  dozen  years.  While  the  bees  are  off  at 
work,  he  sits  at  home  and  weaves,  out  of  the  gnarled 
stems  and  roots  of  manzanita  and  laurels,  curious  baskets, 
chairs,  and  brackets,  for  which  he  finds  read}-  market 
in  Los  Angeles.  He  knows  ever}"  tree  and  shrub  in  the 
canon,  and  has  a  fancy  for  collecting  specimens  of  all  the 
native  woods  of  the  region.  These  he  shapes  into  paper- 
cutters,  and  polishes  them  till  they  are  like  satin.  He 
came  from  Ohio  forty  years  ago,  and  has  lived  in  a  score 
of  States.  The  only  spot  he  likes  as  well  as  this  gorge  is 
Don  Yana,  on  the  Rio  Grande  River,  in  Mexico.  Some- 
times he  hankers  to  go  there  and  sit  under  the  shadow  of 
big  oaks,  where  the  land  slopes  down  to  the  river;  but 
"  the  bee  business,"  he  says,  "  is  a  good  business  only  for 
a  man  who  has  the  gift  of  continuance;"  and  "it's  no 
use  to  try  to  put  bees  with  farms :  farms  want  valleys, 
bees  want  mountains." 

"There  are  great  back-draws  to  the  bee  business,  the 
irregularities  of  the  flowers  being  chief ;  some  years  there 's 
no  honey  in  the  flowers  at  all.  Some  explain  it  on  one 
hypothesis  and  some  on  another,  and  it  lasts  them  to 
quarrel  over." 

His  phrases  astonish  you  ;  also  the  quiet  courtesy  of  his 
manner,  so  at  odds  with  his  backwoodsman's  garb.  But 
presently  you  learn  that  he  began  life  as  a  lawyer,  has  been 
a  judge  in  his  time  ;  and  when,  to  show  his  assortment  of 
paper-cutters,  he  lifts  down  the  big  book  the}'  are  kept  in, 
and  you  see  that  it  is  Voltaire's  ' '  Philosophical  Dictionary," 
you  understand  how  his  speech  has  been  fashioned.  He 
keeps  a  diary  of  every  hive,  the  genealogy  of  every  swarm. 


20  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

"  No  matter  what  they  do,  —  the  least  thing,  —  we  note 
it  right  down  in  the  book.  That 's  the  only  way  to  learn 
bees,"  he  says. 

On  the  outside  wall  of  the  cabin  is  fastened  an  observa- 
tion hive,  with  glass  sides.  Here  he  sits,  watch  in  hand, 
observing  and  noting ;  he  times  the  bees,  in  and  out,  and 
in  each  one  of  their  operations.  He  watches  the  queen  on 
her  bridal  tour  in  the  air ;  once  the  drone  bridegroom  fell 
dead  on  his  note-book.  "  I  declare  I  couldn't  help  feeling 
sort  of  sorry  for  him,"  said  the  old  man. 

In  a  shanty  behind  the  house  is  the  great  honey-strainer, 
a  marvellous  invention,  which  would  drive  bees  mad  with 
despair  if  they  could  understand  it.  Into  a  wheel,  with 
perforated  spokes,  is  slipped  the  comb  full  of  hone}',  the 
cells,  being  first  opened  with  a  hot  knife.  By  the  swift 
turning  of  this  wheel,  the  honey  flies  out  of  the  comb,  and 
pours  through  a  cylinder  into  a  can  underneath,  leaving 
the  comb  whole  and  uninjured,  ready  to  be  put  back  into 
the  hive  for  the  patient  robbed  bees  to  fill  again.  The 
receiving-can  will  hold  fifteen  hundred  pounds ;  two  men 
can  fill  it  in  a  day ;  a  single  comb  is  so  quickly  drained 
that  a  bee  might  leave  his  hive  on  his  foraging  expedi- 
tion, and  before  he  could  get  his  little  load  of  honey  and 
return,  the  comb  could  be  emptied  and  put  back.  It 
would  be  vastly  interesting  to  know  what  is  thought  and 
said  in  bee-hives  about  these  mysterious  emptyings  of 
combs. 

A  still  more  tyrannical  circumvention  has  been  devised, 
to  get  extra  rations  of  honey  from  bees:  false  combs, 
wonderful  imitations  of  the  real  ones,  are  made  of  wax. 
Apparently  the  bees  know  no  difference  ;  at  any  rate,  they 
fill  the  counterfeit  full  of  real  honey.  These  artificial 
combs,  carefully  handled,  will  last  ten  or  twelve  years  in 
continual  use. 

The  highest  yield  his  hives  had  ever  given  him  was  one 
hundred  and  eighty  pounds  a  hive. 

"That's  a  good  yield;  at  that  rate,  with  three  or 
four  hundred  hives,  I  'd  do  very  well,"  said  the  old  man. 
"But  you're  at  the  mercy  of  speculators  in  honey  as 
well  as  everything  else.  I  never  count  on  getting  more 
than  four  or  five  cents  a  pound.  They  make  more  than 
I  do." 


OUTDOOR  INDUSTRIES  IN  CALIFORNIA.        21 

The  bee  has  a  full  year's  work  in  South  California  :  from 
March  to  August  inexhaustible  forage,  and  in  all  the  other 
months  plenty  to  do,  —  no  month  without  some  blossoms 
to  be  found.  His  time  of  danger  is  when  apricots  are  ripe 
and  lady-bugs  %. 

"  Ofapricots,  bees  will  eat  till  they  are  either  drunk  or 
stufl'ed  to  death ;  no  one  knows  which.  They  do  not  live 
to  get  home.  Oddly  enough,  they  cannot  pierce  the  skins 
themselves,  but  have  to  wait  till  the  lad}--bug  has  made  a 
hole  for  them.  It  must  have  been  an  accidental  thing  in 
the  outset,  the  first  bee's  joining  a  lady-bug  at  her  feast  of 
apricot.  The  bee,  in  his  turn,  is  an  irresistible  treat  to 
the  bee-bird  and  lizard,  who  pounce  upon  him  when  he  is 
on  the  flower ;  and  to  a  stealthy  moth,  who  creeps  by  night 
into  hives  and  kills  hundreds. 

"  Nobody  need  think  the  bee  business  is  all  pla}r,"  was 
our  old  philosopher's  last  word.  "  It 's  just  like  everything 
else  in  life,  and  harder  than  some  things." 

The  sheep  industry  is,  on  the  whole,  decreasing  in  Cali- 
fornia. In  1876,  the  wool  crop  of  the  entire  State  was 
28,000  tons;  in  1881,  only  21,500.  This  is  the  result, 
in  part,  of  fluctuations  in  the  price  of  wool,  but  more  of 
the  growing  sense  of  the  greater  certainty  of  increase  from 
agriculture  and  horticulture. 

The  cost  of  keeping  a  sheep  averages  only  $1.25  a  year. 
Its  wool  sells  for  S1.50,  and  for  each  hundred  there  will  be 
forty-five  lambs,  worth  sevent3*-five  cents  each.  But  there 
have  been  droughts  in  California  which  have  killed  over  one 
million  sheep  in  a  year ;  there  is  always,  therefore,  the 
risk  of  losing  in  one  year  the  profits  of  many. 

The  sheep  ranches  are  usually  desolate  places :  a  great 
stretch  of  seemingly  bare  lands,  with  a  few  fenced  corrals, 
blackened  and  foul-smelling ;  the  home  and  out-buildings 
clustered  together  in  a  hollow  or  on  a  hill-side  where  there 
is  water ;  the  less  human  the  neighborhood  the  better. 

The  loneliness  of  the  life  is,  of  itself,  a  salient  objection 
to  the  industry.  Of  this  the  great  owners  need  know 
nothing ;  the}'  can  live  where  they  like.  But  for  the 
small  sheepmen,  the  shepherds,  and,  above  all,  the  herd- 
ers, it  is  a  terrible  life,  —  how  terrible  is  shown  by  the 
frequency  of  insanity  among  herders.  Sometimes,  after 


22  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

only  a  few  months  of  the  life,  a  herder  goes  suddenly  mad. 
Alter  learning  this  fact,  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  see  the 
picturesque  side  of  the  effective  groups  one  so  often  comes 
on  suddenly  in  the  wildernesses  :  sheep  peacefully  grazing, 
and  the  shepherd  lying  on  the  ground  watching  them,  or 
the  whole  flock  racing  in  a  solid,  fleecy,  billowy  scamper  up 
or  down  a  steep  hill-side,  with  the  dogs  leaping  and  bark- 
ing on  all  sides  at  once.  One  scans  the  shepherd's  face 
alone,  with  pitting  fear  lest  he  may  be  losing  his  wits. 

A  shearing  at  a  large  sheep  ranch  is  a  grand  sight.  We 
had  the  good  fortune  to  see  one  at  Baldwin's,  at  La 
Puente.  Three  thousand  sheep  had  been  sheared  the  day 
before,  and  they  would  shear  twenty-five  hundred  on  this 
day. 

A  shed  sixty  feet  long  by  twentj'-five  wide,  sides  open  ; 
small  pens  full  of  sheep  surrounding  it  on  three  sides ; 
eighty  men  bent  over  at  every  possible  angle,  eighty  sheep 
being  tightly  held  in  every  possible  position,  eighty  shears 
flashing,  glancing,  clipping;  bright  Mexican  63-68  shin- 
ing, laughing  Mexican  voices  jesting.  At  first  it  seemed 
only  a  confused  scene  of  phantasmagoria.  As  our  eyes 
became  familiarized,  the  confusion  disentangled  itself, 
and  we  could  note  the  splendid  forms  of  the  men  and 
their  marvellous  dexterity  in  using  the  shears.  Less  than 
five  minutes  it  took  from  the  time  a  sheep  was  grasped, 
dragged  in,  thrown  down,  seized  by  the  shearer's  knees, 
till  it  was  set  free,  clean  shorn,  and  its  three-pound  fleece 
tossed  on  a  table  outside.  A  good  shearer  shears  sev- 
enty or  eight}7  sheep  in  a  day ;  men  of  extra  dexterity 
shear  a  hundred.  The  Indians  are  famous  for  skill  at 
shearing,  and  in  all  their  large  villages  are  organized 
shearing-bands,  with  captains,  that  go  from  ranch  to 
ranch  in  the  shearing-season.  There  were  a  half-dozen 
Indians  lying  on  the  ground  outside  this  shearing-shed  at 
Puente,  looking  on  wistfull}*.  The  Mexicans  had  crowded 
them  out  for  that  day,  and  they  could  get  no  chance  to 
work. 

A  pay  clerk  stood  in  the  centre  of  the  shed  with  a  leath- 
ern wallet  full  of  five-cent  pieces.  As  soon  as  a  man  had 
sheared  his  sheep,  he  ran  to  the  clerk,  fleece  in  hand, 
threw  down  the  fleece,  and  received  his  five-cent  piece. 
In  one  corner  of  the  shed  was  a  barrel  of  beer,  which  was 


OUTDOOR  INDUSTRIES  IN  CALIFORNIA.         23 

retailed  at  five  cents  a  glass ;  and  far  too  many  of  the 
five-cent  pieces  changed  hands  again  the  next  minute  at 
the  beer  barrel.  As  fast  as  the  fleeces  were  tossed  out 
from  the  shed,  they  were  thrown  up  to  a  man  standing  on 
the  top  of  the  roof.  This  man  flung  them  into  an  enor- 
mous bale-sack,  swinging  wide-mouthed  from  a  derrick ; 
in  the  sack  stood  another  man,  who  jumped  on  the  wool 
to  pack  it  down  tight. 

As  soon  as  the  shearers  perceived  that  their  pictures 
were  being  drawn  by  the  artist  in  our  party,  they  were 
all  agog ;  by  twos  and  threes  they  left  their  work  and 
crowded  around  the  carriage,  peering,  commenting,  ask- 
ing to  have  their  portraits  taken,  quizzing  those  whose 
features  they  recognized ;  it  was  like  Italy  rather  than 
America.  One  tattered  fellow,  whose  shoeless  feet  were 
tied  up  in  bits  of  gunny-bags,  was  distressed  because  his 
trousers  were  too  short.  "Would  the  gentleman  kindly 
make  them  in  the  drawing  a  little  farther  down  his  legs? 
It  was  an  accident  they  were  so  short."  All  were  ready 
to  pose  and  stand,  even  in  the  most  difficult  attitudes,  as 
long  as  was  required.  Those  who  had  done  so  asked, 
like  children,  if  their  names  could  not  be  put  in  the  book ; 
so  I  wrote  them  all  down :  "Juan  Canero,  Juan  Rivera, 
Felipe  Ybara,  Jose  Jesus  Lopez,  and  Domingo  Garcia." 
The  space  they  will  fill  is  a  little  thing  to  give ;  and  there 
is  a  satisfaction  in  the  good  faith  of  printing  them,  though 
the  shearers  will  most  assuredly  never  know  it. 

The  faces  of  the  sheep  being  shorn  were  piteous ;  not  a 
struggle,  not  a  bleat,  the  whole  of  their  unwillingness  and 
terror  being  written  in  their  upturned  eyes.  "  As  a  sheep 
before  her  shearers  is  dumb"  will  alwaj-s  have  for  me  a 
new  significance. 

The  shepherd  in  charge  of  the  Puente  ranch  is  an  Italian 
named  Gaetano.  The  porch  of  his  shanty  was  wreathed 
with  vines  and  blossoms,  and  opened  on  a  characteristic 
little  garden,  half  garlic,  the  other  half  pinks  and  gera- 
niums. As  I  sat  there  looking  out  on  the  scene,  he  told 
me  of  a  young  man  who  had  come  from  Italy  to  be  herder 
for  him,  and  who  had  gone  mad  and  shot  himself. 

"  Three  go  crazy  last  year,"  he  said.  "  Dey  come 
home,  not  know  noting.  You  see,  never  got  company 
for  speak  at  all." 


24  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

This  3'oung  boy  grew  melancholy  almost  at  once,  was 
filled  with  abnormal  fears  of  the  coyotes,  and  begged  for 
a  pistol  to  shoot  them  with.  "  He  want  my  pistol.  I  not 
want  give.  I  say,  You  little  sick;  you  stay  home  in 
house;  I  send  oder  man.  My  wife  she  go  town  buy 
clothes  for  baptism  one  baby  got.  He  get  pistol  in  drawer 
while  she  gone."  They  found  him  lying  dead  with  his 
catechism  in  one  hand  and  the  pistol  in  the  other.  As 
Gaetano  finished  the  story,  a  great  flock  of  two  thousand 
shorn  sheep  were  suddenly  let  out  from  one  of  the  cor- 
rals. With  a  great  burst  of  bleating  they  dashed  off, 
the  colly  running  after  them.  Gaetano  seized  his  whis- 
tle and  blew  a  sharp  call  on  it.  The  dog  halted,  looked 
back,  uncertain  for  a  second ;  one  more  whistle,  and  he 
bounded  on. 

"  He  know,"  said  Gaetano.  "  He  take  dem  two  tou- 
sand  all  right.  I  like  better  dat  dog  as  ten  men." 

On  the  list  of  South  California's  outdoor  industries, 
grain  stands  high,  and  will  always  continue  to  do  so. 
Wheat  takes  the  lead ;  but  oats,  barley,  and  corn  are  of 
importance.  Barley  is  always  a  staple,  and  averages 
twenty  bushels  to  the  acre. 

Oats  average  from  thirty  to  forty  bushels  an  acre,  and 
there  are  records  of  yields  of  considerably  over  a  hundred 
bushels. 

Corn  will  average  forty  bushels  an  acre.  On  the  Los 
Angeles  River  it  has  grown  stalks  seventeen  feet  high  and 
seven  inches  round. 

The  average  yield  of  wheat  is  from  twenty  to  twenty- 
five  bushels  an  acre,  about  thirty-three  per  cent  more 
than  in  the  States  on  the  Atlantic  slope. 

In  grains,  as  in  so  many  other  things,  Los  Angeles 
Count}*  is  far  in  advance  of  the  other  counties.  In  1879 
there  were  in  the  county  31,500  acres  in  wheat;  in  1881, 
not  l.-ss  than  100,000 ;  and  the  value  of  the  wheat  crop, 
for  1882  was  reckoned  $1,020.000. 

The  great  San  Fernando  valley,  formerly  the  property 
of  the  San  Fernando  Mission,  is  the  chief  wheat-producing 
section  of  the  county.  The  larger  part  of  this  valley  is 
in  two  great  ranches.  One  of  them  was  bought  a  "few 
years  ago  for  $275,000 ;  and  $75,000  paid  down,  the  re- 


OUTDOOR  INDUSTRIES  IN  CALIFORNIA.         25 

mainder  to  be  paid  in  instalments.  The  next  year  was  a 
dry  year ;  crops  failed.  The  purchaser  offered  the  ranch 
back  again  to  the  original  owners,  with  his  $75,000  thrown 
in,  if  the}'  would  release  him  from  his  bargain.  They  re- 
fused. The  next  winter  rains  came,  the  wheat  crop  was 
large,  prices  were  high,  and  the  ranch  actually  paid  ofi 
the  entire  debt  of  $200,000  still  owing  on  the  purchase. 

From  such  figures  as  these,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  the 
California  farmer  can  afford  to  look  with  equanimity  on 
occasional  droughts.  Experience  has  shown  that  he  can 
lose  crops  two  years  out  of  five,  and  yet  make  a  fair 
average  profit  for  the  five  years. 

The  most  beautiful  ranch  in  California  is  said  to  be  the 
one  about  twelve  miles  west  of  Santa  Barbara,  belonging 
to  Elwood  Cooper.  Its  owner  speaks  of  it  humorously 
as  a  little  "  pocket  ranch."  In  comparison  with  the  great 
ranches  whose  acres  are  counted  by  tens  of  thousands,  it 
is  small,  being  only  two  thousand  acres  in  extent ;  but  in 
any  other  part  of  the  world  except  California,  it  would  be 
thought  a  wild  jest  to  speak  of  an  estate  of  two  thousand 
acres  as  a  small  one. 

Ten  years  ago  this  ranch  was  a  bare,  desolate  sheep 
ranch,  —  not  a  tree  on  it,  excepting  the  oaks  and  syca- 
mores in  the  canons.  To-day  it  has  twelve  hundred  acres 
under  high  cultivation ;  and  driving  from  field  to  field, 
orchard  to  orchard,  one  drives,  if  he  sees  the  whole  of  the 
ranch,  over  eleven  miles  of  good  made  road.  There  are 
three  hundred  acres  in  wheat,  one  hundred  and  seventy 
in  barley ;  thirty-five  hundred  walnut  trees,  twelve  thou- 
sand almond,  five  thousand  olive,  two  thousand  fig  and 
domestic  fruit  trees,  and  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
eucalyptus  trees,  representing  twent}*-four  varieties ;  one 
thousand  grape-vines ;  a  few  orange,  lemon,  and  lime 
trees.  There  are  on  the  ranch  one  hundred  head  of  cattle, 
fifty  horses,  and  fifteen  hundred  sheep. 

These  are  mere  bald  figures,  wonderful  enough  as  sta- 
tistics of  what  may  be  done  in  ten  years'  time  on  South 
California  soil,  but  totally  inadequate  even  to  suggest  the 
beauty  of  the  place. 

The  first  relief  to  the  monotony  of  the  arrow- straight 
road  which  it  pleased  an  impatient,  inartistic  man  to  make 
westward  from  Santa  Barbara,  is  the  sight  of  high,  dark 


26  CALIFORNIA  AND   OREGON. 

walls  of  eucalyptus  trees  on  either  side  of  the  road.  A 
shaded  avenue,  three  quarters  of  a  mile  long,  of  these 
represents  the  frontages  of  Mr.  Cooper's  estate.  Turn- 
ing to  the  right,  through  a  break  in  this  wall,  is  a  road, 
with  dense  eucalyptus  woods  on  the  left  and  an  almond 
orchard  on  the  right.  It  winds  and  turns,  past  knolls 
of  walnut  grove,  long  lines  of  olive  orchard,  •  and  right- 
ancrled  walls  of  eucalyptus  trees  shutting  in  wheat-fields. 
B/curves  and  bends  and  sharp  turns,  all  the  time  with 
new  views,  and  new  colors  from  changes  of  crop,  with  ex- 
quisite glimpses  of  the  sea  shot  through  here  and  there, 
it  flnally,  at  the  end  of  a  mile,  reaches  the  brink  of  an 
oak-canopied  canon.  In  the  mouth  of  this  canon  stands 
the  house,  fronting  south  on  a  sunny  meadow  and  garden 
space,  walled  in  on  three  sides  by  eucalyptus  trees. 

To  describe  the  oak  kingdom  of  this  canon  would  be 
to  begin  far  back  of  all  known  kingdoms  of  the  country. 
The  branches  are  a  network  of  rafters  upholding  roof 
canopies  of  boughs  and  leaves  so  solid  that  the  sun's  rays 
pierce  them  only  brokenly,  making  on  the  ground  a  danc- 
ing carpet  of  brown  and  gold  flecks  even  in  winter,  and  in 
summer  a  shade  lighted  only  by  starry  glints. 

Farther  up  the  canon  are  sycamores,  no  less  stately 
than  the  oaks,  their  limbs  gnarled  and  twisted  as  if  they 
had  won  their  places  by  splendid  wrestle. 

These  oak-and-sycamore-filled  canons  are  the  most 
beautiful  of  the  South 'California  canons;  though  the 
soft,  chaparral-walled  canons  would,  in  some  lights,  press 
them  hard  for  supremacy  of  place.  Nobod3T  will  ever,  by 
pencil  or  brush  or  pen,  fairly  render  the  beauty  of  the 
mysterious,  undefined,  undefinable  chaparral.  Matted, 
tangled,  twisted,  piled,  tufted,  —  everything  is  chaparral. 
All  botany  may  be  exhausted  in  describing  it  in  one  place, 
and  it  will  not  avail  you  in  another.  But  in  all  places, 
and  made  up  of  whatever  hundreds  of  shrubs  it  may  be, 
it  is  the  most  exquisite  carpet  surface  that  Nature  has  to 
show  for  mountain  fronts  or  canon  sides.  Not  a  color 
that  it  does  not  take ;  not  a  bloom  that  it  cannot  rival ; 
a  bank  of  cloud  cannot  be  softer,  or  a  bed  of  flowers  more 
varied  of  hue.  Some  day,  between  1900  and  2000,  when 
South  California  is  at  leisure  and  has  native  artists,  she 
will  have  an  artist  of  canons,  whose  life  and  love  and 


OUTDOOR  INDUSTRIES  IN  CALIFORNIA.         27 

work  will  be  spent  in  picturing  them,  —  the  royal  oak  can- 
opies ;  the  herculean  sycamores ;  the  chameleon,  velvety 
chaparral ;  and  the  wild,  throe-built,  water-quarried  rock 
gorges,  with  their  myriad  ferns  and  flowers. 

At  the  head  of  Mr.  Cooper's  canon  are  broken  and  jut- 
ting sandstone  walls,  over  three  hundred  feet  high,  draped 
with  mosses  and  ferns  and  all  manner  of  vines.  I  saw 
the  dainty  thalictrum,  with  its  clover-like  leaves,  standing 
in  thickets  there,  fresh  and  green,  its  blossoms  nearly  out 
on  the  first  day  of  February.  Looking  down  from  theSe 
heights  over  the  whole  of  the  ranch,  one  sees  for  the  first 
time  the  completeness  of  its  beauty.  The  eucalyptus 
belts  have  been  planted  in  every  instance  solely  with  a 
view  to  utility,  —  either  as  wind-breaks  to  keep  off  known 
special  wind-currents  from  orchard  or  grain-field,  or  to 
make  use  of  gorge  sides  too  steep  for  other  cultivation. 
Yet,  had  the}'  been  planted  with  sole  reference  to  land- 
scape effects,  the}7  could  not  better  have  fallen  into  place. 
Even  out  to  the  very  ocean  edge  the  groves  run,  their  pur- 
ples and  greens  melting  into  the  purples  and  greens  of  the 
sea  when  it  is  dark  and  when  it  is  sunny  blue,  —  making 
harmouious  lines  of  color,  leading  up  from  it  to  the  soft 
grays  of  the  olive  and  the  bright  greens  of  the  walnut  or- 
chards and  wheat-fields.  When  the  almond  trees  are  in 
bloom,  the  eucalyptus  belts  are  perhaps  most  superb  of  all, 
with  their  dark  spears  and  plumes  waving  above  and 
around  the  white  and  rosy  acres. 

The  leading  industry  of  this  ranch  is  to  be  the  making 
of  olive  oil.  Already  its  oil  is  known  and  sought ;  and  to 
taste  it  is  a  revelation  to  palates  accustomed  to  the  com- 
pounds of  rancid  cocoanut  and  cotton-seed  with  which  the 
markets  are  full.  The  olive  industry  will  no  doubt  ulti- 
mately be  one  of  the  great  industries  of  the  whole  coun- 
try :  vast  tracts  of  land  which  are  not  suitable  or  do  not 
command  water  enough  for  orange,  grape,  or  grain  cul- 
ture, affording  ample  support  to  the  thrifty  and  unexacting 
olive.  The  hill-slopes  around  San  Diego,  and  along  the 
coast  line  for  forty  or  fifty  miles  up,  will  no  doubt  one  day 
be  as  thickly  planted  with  olives  as  is  the  Mediterranean 
shore.  Italy's  olive  crop  is  worth  thirty  million  dollars 
annually,  and  California  has  as  much  land  suited  to  the 
olive  as  Italy  has. 


28  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

The  tree  is  propagated  from  cuttings,  begins  to  bear  the 
fourth  yew,  and  is  in  full  bearing  by  the  tenth  or  twelfth. 
One  hundred  and  ten  can  be  planted  to  an  acre.  Their  en- 
durance is  enormous.  Some  of  the  orchards  planted  by  the 
friars  at  the  missions  over  a  hundred  years  ago  are  still 
bearing,  spite  of  scores  of  years  of  neglect ;  and  there  are 
records  of  trees  in  Nice  having  borne  for  several  centuries. 

The  process  of  oil-making  is  an  interesting  spectacle, 
lunder  Mr.  Cooper's  oak  trees.  The  olives  are  first  dried 
'in  trays  with  slat  bottoms,  tiers  upon  tiers  of  these  being 
piled  in  a  kiln  over  a  furnace  fire.  Then  they  are  ground 
between  stone  rollers,  worked  by  huge  wheels,  turned  by 
horse-power.  The  oil,  thus  pressed  out,  is  poured  into 
huge  butts  or  tanks.  Here  it  has  to  stand  and  settle  three 
or  four  months.  There  are  faucets  at  different  levels  in 
these  butts,  so  as  to  draw  off  different  layers  of  oil.  After 
it  has  settled  sufficiently,  it  is  filtered  through  six  layers  of 
cotton  batting,  then  through  one  of  French  paper,  before  it 
is  bottled.  It  is  then  of  a  delicate  straw  color,  with  a  slight 
greenish  tint,  —  not  at  all  of  the  golden  yellow  of  the  ordi- 
nary market  article.  That  golden  j'ellow  and  the  thicken- 
ing in  cold  are  sure  proofs  of  the  presence  of  cotton-seed 
in  oil,  —  the  pure  oil  remaining  limpid  in  a  cold  which  will 
turn  the  adulterated  oils  white  and  thick.  It  is  estimated 
that  an  acre  of  olives  in  full  bearing  will  pay  fifteen  hun- 
dred dollars  a  year  if  pickled,  and  two  thousand  dollars  a 
year  made  into  oil. 

In  observing  the  industries  of  South  California  and 
studying  their  history,  one  never  escapes  from  an  under- 
current of  wonder  that  there  should  be  any  industries  or 
industry  there.  No  winter  to  be  prepared  for ;  no  fixed 
time  at  which  anything  must  be  done  or  not  done  at  all ; 
the  air  sunny,  balmy,  dreamy,  seductive,  making  the  mere 
being  alive  in  it  a  pleasure  ;  all  sorts  of  fruits  and  grains 
growing  a-riot,  and  taking  care  of  themselves,  —  it  is  easy 
to  understand  the  character,  or,  to  speak  more  accurately, 
the  lack  of  character,  of  the  old  Mexican  and  Spanish 
Californians. 

There  was  a  charm  in  it,  however.  Simpty  out  of  sun- 
shine, there  had  distilled  in  them  an  Orientalism  as  fine  in 
its  way  as  that  made  in  the  East  by  generations  of  prophets, 
crusaders,  and  poets. 


OUTDOOR  INDUSTRIES  IN  CALIFORNIA.         29 

With  no  more  curiosity  than  was  embodied  in  "Who 
knows?"  —  with  no  thought  or  purpose  for  a  future  more 
defined  than  "  Some  other  time;  not  to-day,"  —  without 
greeds,  and  with  the  unlimited  generosities  of  children, — 
no  wonder  that  to  them  the  restless,  inquisitive,  insatiable, 
close-reckoning  Yankee  seemed  the  most  intolerable  of  all 
conquerors  to  whom  they  could  surrender.  One  can  fancy 
them  shuddei'ing,  even  in  heaven,  as  they  look  down  to-day 
on  his  colonies,  his  railroads,  his  crops,  —  their  whole  land 
humming  and  buzzing  with  his  industries. 

One  questions  also  whether,  as  the  generations  move  on, 
the  atmosphere  of  life  in  the  sunny  empire  the}1  lost  will 
not  revert  more  and  more  to  their  type,  and  be  less  and 
less  of  the  type  they  so  disliked.  Unto  the  third  and 
fourth  generation,  perhaps,  pulses  ma}*  keep  up  the  tireless 
Yankee  beat ;  but  sooner  or  later  there  is  certain  to  come 
a  slacking,  a  toning  down,  and  a  readjusting  of  standards 
and  habits  by  a  scale  in  which  money  and  work  will  not 
be  the  highest  values.  This  is  "as  sure  as  that  the  sun 
shines,"  for  it  is  the  sun  that  will  bring  it  about. 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS  WORK. 

A    SKETCH    OF    THE    FOUNDATION,     PROSPERITY,    AND    RUIN    OF    THB 
FRANCISCAN   MISSIONS   IN    CALIFORNIA. 


DURING  the  years  when  Saint  Francis  went  up  and  down 
the  streets  of  Assisi,  carrying  in  his  delicate  unused  hands 
the  stones  for  rebuilding  St.  Damiano,  he  is  said  to  have 
been  continually  singing  psalms,  breaking  forth  into  ejac- 
ulations of  gratitude  ;  his  face  beaming  as  that  of  one  who 
saw  visions  of  unspeakable  delight.  How  much  of  the 
spirit  or  instinct  of  prophecy  there  might  have  been  in  his 
exultant  joy,  only  he  himself  knew ;  but  it  would  have 
been  strange  if  there  had  not  been  vouchsafed  to  him  at 
least  a  partial  revelation  of  the  splendid  results  which  must 
of  necessity  follow  the  carrying  out,  in  the  world,  of  the 
divine  impulses  which  had  blazed  up  in  his  soul  like  a  fire. 
As  Columbus,  from  the  trend  of  imperfectly  known  shores 
and  tides,  from  the  mysterious  indications  of  vague  un- 
trarkt'd  winds,  could  deduce  the  glorious  certainty  of  hith- 
erto undreamed  continents  of  westward  land,  so  might 
the  ardent  spiritual  discoverer  see  with  inextinguishable 
faith  the  hitherto  undreamed  heights  which  must  be  surely 
reached  and  won  by  the  path  he  pointed  out.  It  is 
certain  that  very  early  in  his  career  he  had  the  purpose 
of  founding  an  order  whose  members,  being  unselfish  in 
life,  should  be  fit  heralds  of  God  and  mighty  helpers  of 
men.  The  absoluteness  of  self-renunciation  which  he  in- 
culcated and  demanded  startled  even  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury's standard  of  religious  devotion.  Cardinals  and  pope 
alike  doubted  its  being  within  the  pale  of  human  possibility  ; 
and  it  was  not  until  after  much  entreaty  that  the  Church 
gave  its  sanction  to  the  "Seraphic  Saint's"  band  of 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS  WORK.  31 

"  Fratri  Minores,"  and  the  organized  work  of  the  Fran- 
ciscan Order  began.  This  was  in  1208.  From  then  till 
now,  the  Franciscans  have  been,  in  the  literal  sense  of  the 
word,  benefactors  of  men.  Other  of  the  orders  in  the 
Catholic  Church  have  won  more  distinction,  in  the  way  of 
learning,  political  power,  marvellous  suffering  of  penances 
and  deprivation ;  but  the  record  of  the  Franciscans  is  in 
the  main  a  record  of  lives  and  work,  like  the  life  and  work 
of  their  founder ;  of  whom  a  Protestant  biographer  has 
written  :  k*  So  far  as  can  be  made  out,  he  thought  little  of 
himself,  even  of  his  own  soul  to  be  saved,  all  his  life. 
The  trouble  had  been  on  his  mind  how  sufficiently  to 
work  for  God  and  to  help  men." 

Under  the  head  of  helping  men,  come  all  enterprises  of 
discovery,  development,  and  civilization  which  the  earth 
has  known  ;  and  in  man}*  more  of  these  than  the  world 
generally  suspects,  has  been  an  influence  dating  back  to 
the  saint  of  Assisi.  America  most  pre-eminently  stands 
his  debtor.  Of  the  three  to  whom  belongs  the  ghjry  of  its 
discover}-,  one,  Juan  Perez  de  Marchena,  was  a  Francis- 
can friar ;  the  other  two,  Queen  Isabella  and  Columbus, 
were  members  of  Saint  Francis'0  Third  Order ;  and  of  all 
the  splendid  promise  and  wondrous  development  on  the 
California  coast  to-day,  Franciscan  friars  were  the  first 
founders. 

In  the  Franciscan  College  at  Santa  Barbara  is  a  da- 
guerreotype, taken  from  an  old  portrait  which  was  painted 
more  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  at  the  College  of  San 
Fernando,  in  Mexico.  The  face  is  one,  once  seen,  never 
to  be  forgotten  ;  full  of  spirituality  and  tenderness  and 
unutterable  pathos ;  the  mouth  and  chin  so  delicately 
sensitive  that  one  marvels  how  such  a  soul  could  have 
been  capable  of  heroic  endurance  of  hardship ;  the  fore- 
head and  eyes  strong,  and  radiant  with  quenchless  purpose, 
but  filled  with  that  solemn,  yearning,  almost  superhuman 
sadness,  which  has  in  all  time  been  the  sign  and  seal  on 
the  faces  of  men  born  to  die  for  the  sake  of  their  fellows. 
It  is  the  face  of  Father  Junipero  Serra,  the  first  founder  of 
Franciscan  missions  in  South  California.  Studying  the 
lineaments  of  this  countenance,  one  recalls  the  earliest 
authentic  portrait  of  Saint  Francis,  —  the  one  painted  by 
Pisano,  which  hangs  in  the  sacristy  of  the  Assisi  church. 


32  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

There  seems  a  notable  likeness  between  the  two  faces :  the 
small  and  delicate  features,  the  broad  forehead,  and  the  ex- 
pression of  great  gentleness  are  the  same  in  both.  But  the 
saint  had  a  joyousness  which  his  illustrious  follower  never 
knew.  The  gayety  of  the  troubadour  melodies  which 
Francis  sung  all  through  his  youth  never  left  his  soul :  but 
Serra's  first  and  only  songs  were  the  solemn  chants  of  the 
Church ;  his  first  lessons  were  received  in  a  convent ;  his 
earliest  desire  and  hope  was  to  become  a  priest. 

Serra  was  born  of  lowly  people  in  the  island  of  Majorca, 
and  while  he  was  yet  a  little  child  sang  as  chorister  in  the 
convent  of  San  Bernardino.  He  was  but  sixteen  when  he 
entered  the  Franciscan  Order,  and  before  he  was  eighteen 
he  had  taken  the  final  vows.  This  was  in  the  year  1730. 
His  baptismal  name,  Michael  Joseph,  he  laid  aside  on  be- 
coming a  monk,  and  took  the  name  of  Junipero,  after  that 
quaintest  and  drollest  of  all  Saint  Francis's  first  compan- 
ions ;  him  of  whom  the  saint  said  jocosely,  "  Would  that 
I  had  a  whole  forest  of  such  Junipers  !  " 

Studying  in  the  Majorca  Convent  at  the  same  time 
with  Serra,  were  three  other  young  monks,  beloved  and 
intimate  companions  of  his,  —  Palon,  Verger,  and  Crespi. 
The  friendship  thus  early  begun  never  waned  ;  and  the 
heartv  and  loving  co-operation  of  the  four  had  much 
to  do  with  the  success  of  the  great  enterprises  in  which 
afterward  they  jointly  labored,  and  to  which,  even  in 
their  student  days,  they  looked  forward  with  passionate 
longing.  New  Spain  was,  from  the  beginning,  the  goal  of 
their  most  ardent  wishes.  All  their  conversations  turned 
on  this  theme.  Long  years  of  delay  and  monastic  routine 
did  not  dampen  the  ardor  of  the  four  friends.  Again  and 
again  they  petitioned  to  be  sent  as  missionaries  to  the  New 
World,  and  again  and  again  were  disappointed.  At  last, 
in  1749,  there  assembled  in  Cadiz  a  great  body  of  mission- 
aries, destined  chiefly  for  Mexico ;  and  Serra  and  Palon 
received  permission  to  join  the  band.  Arriving  at  Cadiz, 
and  finding  two  vacancies  still  left  in  the  party,  they  pleaded 
warmly  that  Crespi  and  Verger  be  allowed  to  go  also.  At 
the  very  last  moment  this  permission  was  given,  and  the 
four  friends  joyfully  set  sail  in  the  same  ship. 

It  is  impossible  at  this  distance  of  time  to  get  an}*  com- 
plete realization  of  the  halo  of  exalted  sentiment  and  rap- 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS   WORK.  33 

turc  which  then  invested  undertakings  of  this  kind.  From 
the  highest  to  the  lowest,  the  oldest  to  the  youngest,  it 
reached.  Ever}'  art  was  lent  to  its  service,  every  channel 
of  expression  stamped  with  its  sign.  Even  on  the  rude 
atlases  and  charts  of  the  day  were  pictures  of  monks  em- 
barking in  ships  of  discovery ;  the  Virgin  herself  looking 
on  from  the  sky,  with  the  motto  above,  "Matre  Dei  mon- 
travit  via;"  and  on  the  ships'  sails,  "Unus  non  sufficit 
orbis." 

In  the  memoir  of  Father  Junipero,  written  by  his  friend 
Palon,  are  many  interesting  details  of  his  voyage  to  Vera 
Cruz.  It  lasted  ninety-nine  days :  provisions  fell  short ; 
starvation  threatened ;  terrific  storms  nearly  wrecked  the 
ship ;  but  through  all,'  Father  Junipero's  courage  never 
failed.  He  said,  "•  remembering  the  end  for  which  they 
had  come,"  he  felt  no  fear.  He  performed  mass  each 
morning,  and  with  psalms  and  exhortations  cheered  the 
sinking  spirits  of  all  on  board. 

For  nineteen  years  after  their  arrival  in  Mexico,  Father 
Junipero  and  his  three  friends  were  kept  at  work 
there,  under  the  control  of  the  College  of  San  Fernando, 
in  founding  missions  and  preaching.  On  the  suppression 
of  the  Jesuit  Order,  in  1767,  and  its  consequent  expulsion 
from  all  the  Spanish  dominions,  it  was  decided  to  send  a 
band  of  Franciscans  to  California,  to  take  charge  of  the 
Jesuit  missions  there.  These  were  all  in  Lower  California, 
no  attempt  at  settlement  having  been  yet  made  in  Upper 
California. 

Once  more  the  friends,  glad  and  exultant,  joined  a  mis- 
sionary band  bound  to  new  wildernesses.  They  were  but 
three  now,  Verger  remaining  behind  in  the  College  of  San 
Fernando.  The  band  numbered  sixteen.  Serra  was  put 
in  charge  of  it,  and  was  appointed  president  of  all  the 
California  missions.  His  biographer  says  he  received  this 
appointment  "•  unable  to  speak  a  single  word  for  tears." 
It  was  not  strange,  on  the  realization  of  a  hope  so  long 
deferred.  He  was  now  fifty-six  years  old  ;  and  from  boy- 
hood his  longing  had  been  to  labor  among  the  Indians  on 
the  western  shores  of  the  New  World. 

It  was  now  the  purpose  of  the  Spanish  Government  to 
proceed  as  soon  as  possible  to  the  colonization  of  Upper 
California.  The  passion  of  the  Church  allied  itself  gladly 
3 


34  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

with  the  purpose  of  the  State ;  and  the  State  itself  had 
among  its  statesmen  and  soldiers  many  men  *who  were 
hardly  less  fervid  in  religion  than  were  those  sworn  exclu- 
sive! v  to  tin-  Church's  service.  Such  an  one  was  Joseph 
dt>  (Jalvez,  who  held  the  office  of  Visitor-General  and 
Commander,  representing  the  person  of  the  King,  and  in- 
specting the  working  of  the  Government  in  every  province 
of  the  Spanish  Empire.  Upon  him  rested  the  responsi- 
bility of  the  practical  organization  of  the  first  expedition 
into  Upper  California.  It  was  he  who  ordered  the  carry- 
ing of  all  sorts  of  seeds  of  vegetables,  grains,  and  flow- 
ers ;  everything  that  would  grow  in  Old  Spain  he  ordered 
to  be  planted  in  New.  He  ordered  that  two  hundred  head 
of  cattle  should  be  taken  from  the  northernmost  of  the 
Lower  California  missions,  and  carried  to  the  new  posts. 
It  was  he  also,  as  full  of  interest  for  chapel  as  for  farm, 
who  selected  and  packed  with  his  own  hands  sacred  orna- 
ments and  vessels  for  church  ceremonies.  A  curious  let- 
ter of  his  to  Palon  is  extant,  in  which  he  says  laughingly 
that  he  is  a  better  sacristan  than  Father  Junipero,  having 
packed  the  holy  vessels  and  ornaments  quicker  and  better 
than  he.  There  are  also  extant  some  of  his  original  in- 
structions to  militaiT  and  naval  commanders  which  show 
his  religious  ardor  and  wisdom.  He  declares  that  the  first 
object  of  the  expedition  is  "to  establish  the  Catholic  re- 
ligion among  a  numerous  heathen  people,  submerged  in 
the  obscure  darkness  of  paganism,  to  extend  the  dominion 
of  the  King  our  Lord,  and  to  protect  this  peninsula  from 
the  ambitious  views  of  foreign  nations." 

With  no  clearer  knowledge  than  could  be  derived  from 
scant  records  of  Viscayno's  voyage  in  1602,  he  selected 
the  two  best  and  most  salient  points  of  the  California 
«>a-t.  San  Diego  and  Monterey,  and  ordered  the  found- 
ing of  a  mission  at  each.  He  also  ordered  the  selection 
of  a  point  midway  between  these  two,  for  another  mission 
to  be  called  Buena  Ventura.  His  activity,  generosity,  and 
enthusiasm  were  inexhaustible.  He  seems  to  have  had  hu- 
mor as  well ;  for  when  discussing  the  names  of  the  mis- 
sions to  be  founded,  Father  Junipero  said  to  him,  "  But 
!•*  there  to  be  no  mission  for  our  Father  St.  Francis?" 
he  replied,  "If  St.  Francis  wants  a  mission,  let  him  show 
us  his  post,  and  we  will  put  one  there  for  him  !  " 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS    WORK.  35 

The  records  of  this  first  expedition  into  California  are 
full  of  interest.  It  was  divided  into  two  parts,  one  to  go 
by  sea,  and  one  by  land ;  the  sea  party  in  two  ships,  and 
the  land  party  in  two  divisions.  Every  possible  precau- 
tion and  provision  was  thought  of  by  the  wise  Galvez ; 
but  neither  precaution  nor  provision  could  make  the  jour- 
1163-  other  than  a  terrible  one.  Father  Junipero,  with  his 
characteristic  ardor,  insisted  on  accompanying  one  of  the 
land  parties,  although  he  was  suffering  severely  from  an 
inflamed  leg,  the  result  of  an  injury  he  had  received  twenty 
3'ears  before  in  journeying  on  foot  from  Vera  Cruz  to  the 
city  of  Mexico.  Galvez  tried  in  vain  to  detain  him ;  he 
said  he  would  rather  die  on  the  road  than  not  go,  but  that 
he  should  not  die,  for  the  Lord  would  carry  him  through. 
However,  on  the  second  day  out,  his  pain  became  so  great 
that  he  could  neither  sit,  stand,  nor  sleep.  Portala,  the 
military  commander  of  the  party,  implored  him  to  be  car- 
ried in' a  litter  ;  but  this  he  could  not  brook.  Calling  one 
of  the  muleteers  to  him,  he  said,  — 

"  Son,  do  you  not  know  some  remedy  for  this  sore  on 
my  leg?" 

"Father,"  replied  the  muleteer,  "what  remedy  can  I 
know?  I  have  only  cured  beasts." 

"  Then  consider  me  a  beast,"  answered  Serra  ;  "  consider 
this  sore  on  my  leg  a  sore  back,  and  give  me  the  same 
treatment  you  would  apply  to  a  beast." 

Thus  adjured,  the  muleteer  took  courage,  and  saying, 
"  I  will  do  it,  Father,  to  please  you,"  he  proceeded  to  mix 
herbs  in  hot  tallow,  with  which  he  anointed  the  wound, 
and  so  reduced  the  inflammation  that  Father  Junipero 
slept  all  night,  rose  early,  said  matins  and  mass,  and  re- 
sumed his  journey  in  comparative  comfort.  He  bore  this 
painful  wound  to  the  end  of  his  life ;  and  it  was  charac- 
teristic of  the  man  as  well  as  of  the  abnormal  standards  of 
the  age,  that  he  not  only  sought  no  measures  for  a  radical 
cure  of  the  diseased  member,  but,  obstinately  accepting 
the  suffering  as  a  cross,  allowed  the  trouble  to  be  aggra- 
vated in  every  wa}*,  by  going  without  shoes  or  stockings 
and  by  taking  long  journeys  on  foot. 

A  diary  kept  bv  Father  Crespi  on  his  toilsome  march 
from  Velicata  to  San  Diego  is  full  of  quaint  and  curious  en- 
tries, monotonous  in  its  religious  reiterations,  but  touching 


36  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

in  its  simplicity  and  unconscious  testimony  to  his  own 
sinule-heartedness  and  patience.  The  nearest  approach  to 
:i  complaint  he  makes  is  to  say  that  ik  nothing  abounds 
except  stones  and  thorns."  When  they  journey  for  days 
with  no  water  except  scanty  rations  from  the  precious 
casks  they  are  carrying,  he  always  piously  trusts  water 
will  be  found  on  the  morrow;  and  when  they  come  to 
great  tracts  of  impenetrable  cactus  thickets,  through  which 
they  are  obliged  to  hew  a  pathway  with  axes,  as  through  a 
forest,  and  are  drenched  to  the  skin  in  cold  rains,  and 
deserted  by  the  Christian  Indians  whom  they  had  brought 
from  Lower  California  as  guides,  he  mentions  the  facts 
without  a  murmur,  and  has  even  for  the  deserters  only  a 
benediction :  "  May  God  guard  the  misguided  ones  ! "  A 
far  more  serious  grievance  to  him  is  that  toward  the  end  of 
the  journey  he  could  no  longer  celebrate  full  mass  because 
the  wafers  had  given  out.  Sometimes  the  party  found 
themselves  hemmed  in  by  mountains,  and  were  forced 
to  halt  for  days  while  scouts  went  ahead  to  find  a  pass. 
More  than  once,  hoping  that  at  last  the}'  had  found  a 
direct  and  easy  route,  they  struck  down  to  the  sea-shore, 
only  to  discover  themselves  soon  confronted  b}-  impassable 
spurs  of  the  Coast  Range,  and  forced  to  toil  back  again  up 
into  the  labyrinths  of  mesas  and  cactus  plains.  It  was 
IIolv  Thursday,  the  24th  of  March,  when  they  set  out, 
and  it  was  not  until  the  13th  of  May  that  they  reached  the 
high  ground  from  which  they  had  their  first  view  of  the 
bay  of  San  Diego,  and  saw  the  masts  of  the  ships  tying  at 
anchor  there,  —  "  which  sight  was  a  great  joy  and  consola- 
tion to  us  all,"  says  the  diary. 

They  named  this  halting-place  "  Espiritu  Santo."  It 
must  have  been  on,  or  very  near,  the  ridge  where  now 
runs  the  boundary  line  between  the  United  States  and 
Mexico,  as  laid  down  by  the  treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo. 
It  is  a  grand  promontory,  ten  miles  southeast  of  San 
I)ie#».  thrusting  out  to  sea;  bare  of  trees,  but  matted 
thick  with  the  dewy  ice-plant,  and  in  early  spring  carpeted 
with  tlowers.  An  ugly  monument  of  stone  stands  there, 
bearing  the  names  of  the  American  and  Mexican  commis- 
sion. TS  who  established  this  boundary  line  in  October,  1*1!). 
It  would  seem  much  more  fitting  to  have  there  a  monument 
:  the  names  of  the  heroic  men  — friars  and  soldiers 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS  WORK.  37 

of  Spain  —  who  on  that  spot,  on  May  14,  1769,  sang  the 
first  Easter  hymn  heard  on  California  shores. 

It  was  a  sore  grief  for  Father  Crespi  that  the.  command- 
ant of  the  party  would  not  wait  here  for  him  to  say  a 
mass  of  thanksgiving ;  but  with  the  port  in  sight,  impa- 
tience could  not  be  restrained,  and  the  little  band  pushed 
on.  As  soon  as  the  San  Diego  camp  was  seen,  the 
soldiers  discharged  a  salute  of  fire-arms,  which  was  an- 
swered instantly  from  shore  and  ship.  Great  joy  filled 
even-  heart.  The  friars  who  had  come  by  sea  ran  to  meet 
and  embrace  their  brothers.  The  gladness  was  dampened 
only  by  the  sad  condition  of  the  ships'  crews,  man}-  of 
whom  were  dead  or  dying.  The}-  had  been  four  months, 
with  their  poor  charts  and  poorer  ships,  making  their  way 
from  La  Paz  up  to  San  Diego  ;  and  in  consequence  of  insuf- 
ficient and  unwholesome  food,  the  scurvy  had  broken  out 
among  them.  It  was  a  melancholy  beginning  for  the  ne"w 
enterprise.  When,  six  weeks  later,  the  second  land  party 
with  Father  Junipero  arrived,  eager  to  proceed  to  the  es- 
tablishing of  the  mission,  they  found  that  their  first  duty 
was  to  the  sick  and  dying  of  their  own  people.  In  lifteen 
days  twenty-nine  of  the  sailors  and  soldiers  died.  The  In- 
dians, who  at  first  had  been  gentle  and  friendly,  grew  each 
day  more  insolent  and  thievish,  even  tearing  off  the  clothes 
of  the  sick  lying  helpless  in  the  tents  or  tule  huts  on  the 
beach.  At  last,  on  the  16th  of  July,  a  cross  was  set  up 
facing  the  port,  and  in  a  rude  booth  of  branches  and 
reeds,  mass  was  celebrated  and  the  grand  hymn  of  uVeni 
Creator"  was  sung,  the  pilgrims  "supplying  the  want 
of  an  organ  by  discharging  fire-arms,"  says  the  old  record, 
and  with  only  the  "  smoke  of  muskets  for  incense."  Thus 
was  founded  the  Mission  of  San  Diego ;  and  thus  was 
laid  the  corner-stone  of  the  civilization  of  California  on 
July  16,  1769. 

Two  days  before  this  the  indefatigable  Crespi  had  set  off 
with  another  overland  party,  Portala  at  its  head,  to  find 
Monterey.  On  this  journey,  also,  Father  Crespi  kept  a 
diary,  —  little  suspecting,  probably,  with  how  much  in- 
terest it  would  be  studied  a  century  later.  It  was  not 
Ui:i!;'_r  that  with  only  a  compass  and  seventeenth-century 
Charts  to  guide  them  along  the  zigzagging  labyrinths  of 
Ittivs,  headlands,  and  sand-hills  which  make  the  California 


38  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

shore,  the}'  toiled  to  no  purpose  seeking  the  Monterey 
harbor.  It  is  pitiful  to  read  the  record  of  the  days  when 
fthey  were  close  upon  it,  setting  up  a  cross  on  one  of  its  hills, 
and  vet  could  not  see  it;  even  querying,  so  bewildered 
and  lost  were  they,  if  it  might  not  have  been  filled  up  with 
sands  since  Viscayno's  time.  Forty  leagues  north  of  it 
tli.'V  went,  and  discovered  the  present  bay  of  San  Francisco, 
which  they  at  once  recognized  by  Viscayno's  description  ; 
and  recalling  the  speech  of  Galvez  in  regard  to  Saint 
Francis  pointing  out  a  port  if  he  wanted  a  mission  of  his 
own  name,  the  pious  fathers  thought  it  not  unlikely  that 
the  saint  himself  had  hidden  Monterey  from  their  sight, 
and  led  them  to  his  own  harbor.  Month  after  month 
passed,  and  still  they  were  wandering.  They  were  foot- 
sore, weary,  hungr}',  but  not  disheartened.  Friendly  In- 
dians everywhere  greeted  them  kindly,  gave  them  nuts, 
and  shell-fish,  and  bread  made  from  acorn  flour.  At  one 
time  seventeen  of  the  party  were  too  ill  to  travel.  Twice 
they  halted  and  held  council  on  the  question  of  abandoning 
the  search.  Some  were  ready  to  continue  as  long  as  the 
provisions  held  out,  then  to  eat  their  mules,  and  go  back 
on  foot.  Fathers  Crespi  and  Gomez  volunteered  to  be 
left  behind  alone. 

At  last,  on  the  llth  of  November,  it  was  decided  to 
return  by  the  route  by  which  they  had  come.  On  the 
20th,  finding  that  their  flour  had  been  stolen  by  the  sol- 
diers, they  divided  the  remainder  into  equal  parts,  giving 
to  each  person  enough  to  last  him  two  days.  On  Christ- 
mas Day  they  had  a  present  of  nuts  from  friendly  Indians, 
and  on  New  Year's  Day  they  had  the  luck  to  kill  a  bear 
and  three  cubs,  which  gave  them  a  feast  for  which  they 
offered  most  devout  thanksgivings.  For  the  rest,  they 
lived  chiefly  on  mussels,  with  now  and  then  a  wild  goose. 
On  the  24th  of  January  they  came  out  on  the  table-lands 
above  San  Diego,  six  months  and  ten  days  from  the  time 
of  their  departure.  Firing  a  salute,  they  were  answered 
instantly  by  shots  from  the  camp,  and  saw  an  eager  crowd 
running  to  meet  them,  great  anxiety  having  been  felt  at 
tlii-ir  long  absence. 

It  is  worth  while,  in  studying  the  history  of  these  Fran- 
ciscan missions,  to  dwell  on  the  details  of  the  hardships 
endured  in  the  beginning  by  their  founders.  Only  narrow- 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS   WORK.  39 

minded  bigotiy  can  fail  to  see  in  them  proofs  of  a  spiritual 
enthusiasm  and  exaltation  of  self-sacritice  which  are  rarely 
paralleled  in  the  world's  history.  And  to  do  justice  to  the 
results  accomplished,  it  is  necessary  to  understand  thor- 
oughly the  conditions  at  the  outset  of  the  undertaking. 

The  weary,  returned  party  found  their  comrades  in 
sorry  plight.  The  scurvy  had  spread,  and  many  more 
had  died.  Father  Junipero  himself  had  been  dangerously 
ill  with  it ;  provisions  were  running  low ;  the  Indians 
were  only  half  friendly,  and  were  not  to  be  trusted  out 
of  sight.  The  supply-ships  looked  for  from  Mexico  had 
not  arrived. 

A  situation  more  helpless,  unprotected,  discouraging, 
could  not  be  conceived  than  that  of  this  little,  suffering 
band,  separated  by  leagues  of  desert  and  leagues  of  ocean 
from  all  possible  succor.  At  last  an  examination  showed 
that  there  were  only  provisions  sufficient  left  to  subsist  the 
party  long  enough  to  make  the  journey  back  to  Velicata. 
It  seemed  madness  to  remain  longer ;  and  Governor  Por- 
tala,  spite  of  Father  Junipero's  entreaties,  gave  orders  to 
prepare  for  the  abandonment  of  the  missions.  He  fixed 
the  20th  of  March  as  the  last  da}-  he  would  wait  for  the 
arrival  of  the  ship.  This  was  Saint  Joseph's  Day.  On  the 
morning  of  it  Father  Junipero,  who  had  been  praying 
night  and  day  for  weeks,  celebrated  to  Saint  Joseph  a  high 
mass,  with  special  supplications  for  relief.  Before  noon  a 
sail  was  seen  on  the  horizon.  One  does  not  need  to  believe 
in  saints  and  saints'  interpositions  to  feel  a  thrill  at  this 
coincidence,  and  in  fancying  the  effect  the  sudden  vision 
of  the  relief-ship  must  have  produced  on  the  minds  of 
devout  men  who  had  been  starving.  The  ship  appeared 
for  a  few  moments,  then  disappeared  ;  doubtless  there 
were  some  who  scoffed  at  it  as  a  mere  apparition.  But 
Portala  believed,  and  waited  ;  and,  four  days  later,  in  the 
ship  came  !  —  the  "  San  Antonio,"  bringing  bountiful  stores 
of  all  that  was  needed. 

Courage  and  cheer  now  filled  the  very  air.  No  time 
was  lost  in  organizing  expeditions  to  go  once  -more  in 
search  of  the  mysteriously  hidden  Monterey.  In  less  than 
three  weeks  two  parties  had  set  off, — one  by  sea  in  the 
"  San  Antonio."  With  this  went  Father  Junipero,  still  fee- 
ble from  illness.  Father  Crespf,  undaunted  by  his  former 


40  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

six  months  of  wandering,  joined  the  land  party,  reaching 
the  Point  of  Pines,  on  Monterey  Harbor,  seven  days 
before  the  ship  arrived.  As  soon  as  she  came  in  sight, 
bonfires  were  lighted  on  the  rocks,  and  the  ship  answered 
by  tiring  cannon.  It  was  a  great  rejoicing.  The  next 
day,  June  1st,  the  officers  of  the  two  parties  met,  and 
exchanged  congratulations ;  and  on  the  third  they  took 
formal  possession  of  the  place :  first,  in  the  name  of  the 
Church,  by  religious  ceremonies ;  secondly,  in  the  name 
of  the  King  of  Spain,  unfurling  the  royal  standard,  and 
planting  it  in  the  ground,  side  by  side  with  the  cross. 

To  one  familiar  with  the  beauty  of  the  Monterey  shore 
in  June,  the  picture  of  this  scene  is  vivid.  The  sand-dunes 
were  ablaze  with  color ;  lupines  in  high,  wavjng  masses, 
white  and  yellow  ;  and  great  mats  of  the  glittering  ice- 
plant,  with  myriads  of  rose-colored  umbels,  lying  flat  on 
the  white  sand.  Many  rods  inland,  the  air  was  sweet  with 
their  fragrance,  borne  by  the  strong  sea-wind.  On  long 
clitl's  of  broken,  tempest-piled  rocks  stood  ranks  upon  ranks 
of  grand  old  cypress- trees. — gnarled,  bent,  twisted,  defi- 
ant, full  of  both  pathos  and  triumph  in  their  loneliness,  in 
this  the  only  spot  on  earth  to  which  they  are  native. 

The  booth  of  boughs  in  which  the  mass  was  performed 
was  built  under  a  large  oak,  on  the  same  spot  where  Vis- 
cayno  had  landed  and  his  Carmelite  monks  had  said  mass 
one  hundred  and  sixty-seven  years  before.  The  ceremo- 
nies closed  with  a  ringing  Te  Deum,  —  sailors,  soldiers, 
monks,  alike  jubilant. 

When  the  news  of  the  founding  of  this  second  mission 
reached  the  city  of  Mexico,  there  was  a  furore  of  excite- 
ment. The  bells  of  the  city  were  rung ;  people  ran  up  and. 
down  the  streets  telling  each  other ;  and  the  viceroy  held 
at  his  palace  a  grand  reception,  to  which  went  all  persons 
of  note,  eager  to  congratulate  him  and  Galvez.  Printed 
proclamations,  giving  full  accounts,  were  circulated,  not 
only  in  Mexico  but  throughout  Spain.  No  province  so 
remote,  no  home  so  lowly,  as  to  fail  to  hear  the  good  news. 
It  was  indeed  good  news  to  both  State  and  Church.  The 
fact  of  the  occupation  of  the  new  country  was  accom- 
plished ;  the  scheme  for  the  conversion  and  salvation  of 
the  .savajri-  nu-e  was  fairly  inaugurated  ;  Monterey  and  San 
Die-go  being  assured,  ultimate  possession  of  the  whole  of 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS   WORK.  41 

the  coast  line  between  would  follow.  Little  these  glad- 
dened people  in  Spain  and  Mexico  realized,  however,  the 
cost  of  the  triumph  over  which  the}-  rejoiced,  or  the  true 
condition  of  the  men  who  had  won  it. 

The  history  of  the  next  fifteen  years  is  a  history  of 
struggle,  hardship,  and  heroic  achievement.  The  inde- 
fatigable Serra  was  the  mainspring  and  support  of  it  all. 
There  seemed  no  limit  to  his  endurance,  no  bound  to  his 
desires ;  nothing  daunted  his  courage  or  chilled  his  faith. 
When,  in  the  sixth  year  after  the  founding  of  the  San 
Diego  Mission,  it  was  attacked  by  hostile  Indians,  one  of 
the  fathers  being  most  cruelly  murdered,  and  the  buildings 
burned  to  the  ground,  Father  Junipero  exclaimed,  "Thank 
God  !  The  seed  of  the  Gospel  is  now  watered  by  the  blood 
of  a  martyr  ;  that  mission  is  henceforth  established  ; "  and 
in  a  few  months  he  was  on  the  spot,  with  money  and  mate- 
rials, ready  for  rebuilding ;  pressing  sailors,  neophytes, 
soldiers,  into  the  service ;  working  with  his  own  hands, 
also,  spite  of  the  fears  and  protestations  of  all,  and  only 
desisting  on  positive  orders  from  the  military  commander. 
He  journeyed,  frequently  on  foot,  back  and  forth  through 
the  country,  founding  a  new  mission  whenever,  by  his  ur- 
gent letters  to  the  College  of  San  Fernando  and  to  the  Mex- 
ican viceroys,  he  had  gathered  together  men  and  money 
enough  to  do  so.  In  1772,  when  perplexities  seemed  inex- 
tricably thickened  and  supplies  had  fallen  so  short  that 
starvation  threatened  the  missions,  he  took  ship  to  San 
Bias.  With  no  companion  except  one  Indian  boy,  he 
toiled  on  foot  from  San  Bias  to  Guadalajara,  two  hundred 
and  forty  miles.  Here  they  both  fell  ill  of  fever,  and  sank 
so  low  that  they  were  supposed  to  be  dying,  and  the  Holy 
Viaticum  was  administered  to  them.  But  the}'  recovered, 
and  while  only  parti}-  convalescent,  pushed  on  again,  reach- 
ing the  city  of  Mexico  in  February,  1773.  Hard-hearted 
indeed  must  the  Mexican  viceroy  have  been  to  refuse  to 
heed  the  prayers  of  an  aged  man  who  had  given  such  proofs 
as  this  of  his  earnestness  and  devotion.  The  difficulties 
were  cleared  up,  money  and  supplies  obtained,  and  Father 
Junipero  returned  to  his  post  with  a  joyful  heart.  Before 
leaving,  he  kissed  the  feet  of  the  friars  in  the  college,  and 
asked  their  blessing,  saying  that  they  would  never  behold 
him  more. 


42  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

Father  Junipero's  most  insatiable  passion  was  for  bap- 
tizing Indians  ;  the  saving  of  one  soul  thus  from  death 
filled  him  with  unspeakable  joy.  His  biographer  illus- 
trates this  by  the  narrative  of  the  first  infant  baptism  at- 
tempted at  the  San  Diego  Mission.  The  Indians  had  been 
prevailed  upon  to  bring  an  infant  to  receive  the  consecra- 
tion. Everything  was  ready :  Father  Junipero  had  raised 
his  hand  to  sprinkle  the  child's  face  ;  suddenly  heathen  ter- 
ror got  the  better  of  the  parents,  and  in  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye  they  snatched  their  babe  and  ran.  Tears  rolled 
down  Father  Junipero's  cheeks:  he  declared  that  only 
some  uuworthiness  in  himself  could  have  led  to  such  a 
disaster ;  and  to  the  day  of  his  death  he  could  never  tell 
the  story  without  tears,  thinking  it  must  be  owing  to  his 
sins  that  the  soul  of  that  particular  child  had  been  lost. 

When  he  preached  he  was  carried  out  of  himself  by  the 
fervor  of  his  desire  to  impress  his  hearers.  Baring  his 
breast,  he  would  beat  it  violently  with  a  stone,  or  burn  the 
flesh  with  a  lighted  torch,  to  enhance  the  effect  of  his  de- 
scriptions of  the  tortures  of  hell.  There  is  in  his  memoir  a 
curious  engraving,  showing  him  lifted  high  above  a  motley 
group  of  listeners,  holding  in  his  hands  the  blazing  torch 
and  the  stone. 

In  the  same  book  is  an  outline  map  of  California  as  he 
knew  it.  It  is  of  the  coast  line  from  San  Diego  to  San 
Francisco,  and  the  only  objects  marked  on  it  are  the  mis- 
sions and  dotted  lines  showing  the  roads  leading  from  one 
to  another.  All  the  rest  is  a  blank. 

There  were  nine  of  these  missions,  founded  by  Serra, 
before  his  death  n  1784.  They  were  founded  in  the  fol- 
lowing order:  San  Diego,  July  16,  1769;  San  Carlos  de 


Capistrano,  Nov.  1, 1776  ;  Santa  Clara,  Jan.  18, 1777  ;  San 
Burna  Vi-ntura,  March  31,  1782. 

The  transports  into  which  Father  Junipero  was  thrown 
by  the  beginning  of  a  new  mission  are  graphically  told  bv 
the  companion  who  wont  with  him  to  establish  the  mission 
of  San  Antonio.  AVith  "liis  little  train  of  soldiers,  and 
niiiU-.s  laden  with  a  few  weeks'  supplies,  he  wandered  off 
into  the  unexplored  wilderness  sixty  miles  south  of  Mon- 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS   WORK.  43 

terey,  looking  eagerly  for  river  valleys  promising  fertility. 
As  sooii  as  the  beautiful  oak-shaded  plain,  with  its  river 
swift  and  full  even  in  July,  caught  his  eye,  he  ordered  a 
halt,  seized  the  bells,  tied  them  to  an  oak  bough,  and  fell 
to  ringing  them  with  might  and  main,  crying  aloud :  "Hear, 
hear,  O  ye  Gentiles  !  Come  to  the  Holy  Church  !  Come  to 
the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ !  "  Not  a  human  creature  was  in 
sight,  save  his  own  band  ;  and  his  companion  remonstrated 
with  him.  "-Let  me  alone,"  cried  Father  Junipero.  "Let 
me  unburden  my  heart,  which  could  wish  that  this  bell 
should  be  heard  by  all  the  world,  or  at  least  by  all  the 
Gentiles  in  these  mountains ; "  and  he  rang  on  till  the 
echoes  answered,  and  one  astonished  Indian  appeared,  — 
the  first  instance  in  which  a  native  had  been  present  at  the 
foundation  of  a  mission.  Not  long  afterward  came  a  very 
aged  Indian  woman  named  Agreda,  begging  to  be  baptized, 
saying  that  she  had  seen  a  vision  in  the  skies  of  a  man 
clad  like  the  friars,  and  that  her  father  had  repeated  to  her 
in  her  youth  the  same  words  they  now  spoke. 

The  history  of  this  San  Antonio  Mission  justified  Father 
Junipero's  selection.  The  site  proved  one  of  the  richest 
and  most  repaying,  including,  finally,  seven  large  farms 
with  a  chapel  on  each,  and  being  famous  for  the  best  wheat 
grown,  and  the  best  flour  made  in  the  country.  The  curi- 
ous mill  in  which  the  flour  was  ground  is  still  to  be  seen,  — 
a  most  interesting  ruin.  It  was  run  by  water  brought  in  a 
stone-walled  ditch  for  many  miles,  and  driven  through  a 
funnel-shaped  flume  so  as  to  strike  the  side  of  a  large 
water-wheel,  revolving  horizontally  on  a  shaft.  The  build- 
ing of  this  aqueduct  and  the  placing  of  the  wheel  were 
the  work  of  an  Indian  named  Nolberto,  who  took  the  idea 
from  the  balance-wheel  of  a  watch,  and  did  all  the  work 
with  his  own  hands.  The  walls  are  broken  now ;  and  the 
sands  have  so  blown  in  and  piled  around  the  entrance,  that 
the  old  wheel  seems  buried  in  a  cellar ;  linnets  have  builded 
nests  in  the  dusky  corners,  and  are  so  seldom  disturbed 
that  their  bright  eyes  gaze  with  placid  unconcern  at  curious 
intruders. 

Many  interesting  incidents  are  recorded  in  connection 
with  the  establishment  of  these  first  missions.  At  San 
Gabriel  the  Indians  gathered  in  great  force,  and  were 
about  to  attack  the  little  band  of  ten  soldiers  and  two 


44  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

friars  preparing  to  plant  their  cross  ;  but  on  the  unfurling 
of  a  banner  with  a  life-size  picture  of  the  Virgin  painted  on 
it,  they  flung  away  their  bows  and  arrows,  came  running 
toward  the  banner  with  gestures  of  reverence  and  delight, 
and  threw  their  beads  and  other  ornaments  on  the  ground 
before  it,  as  at  the  feet  of  a  suddenly  recognized  queen. 

The  San  Gabriel  Indians  seem  to  have  been  a  superior 
race.  They  spoke  a  soft,  musical  language,  now  nearly! 
lost.  Their  name  for  God  signified  "  Giver  of  Life." 
They  had  no  belief  in  a  devil  or  in  hell,  and  persisted 
always  in  regarding  them  as  concerning  only  white  men. 
Robbery  was  unknown  among  them,  murder  was  punished 
by  death,  and  marriage  between  those  near  of  kin  was  not 
allowed.  They  had  names  for  the  points  of  the  compass, 
and  knew  the  North  Star,  calling  it  Runi.  They  had 
games  at  which  they  decked  themselves  with  flower  gar- 
lands, which  wreathed  their  heads  and  hung  down  to  their 
feet.  They  had  certain  usages  of  politeness,  such  as  that 
a  child,  bringing  water  to  an  elder,  must  not  taste  it  on  the 
way ;  and  that  to  pass  between  two  who  were  speaking 
was  an  offence.  The}'  had  song  contests,  often  lasting 
many  days,  and  sometimes  handed  down  to  the  next  gen- 
eration. To  a  people  of  such  customs  as  these,  the  S3'm- 
bols,  shows,  and  ceremonies  of  the  Catholic  Church  must 
needs  have  seemed  especially  beautiful  and  winning. 

The  records  of  the  founding  of  these  missions  are  simi- 
lar in  details,  but  are  full  of  interest  to  one  in  sympathy 
either  with  their  spiritual  or  their  historical  significance. 
The  routine  was  the  same  in  all  cases.  A  cross  was  set 
up ;  a  booth  of  branches  was  built ;  the  ground  and  the 
booth  were  consecrated  by  hol\-  water,  and  christened  by 
the  name  of  a  saint ;  a  mass  was  performed  ;  the  neighbor- 
ing Indians,  if  there  were  any,  were  roused  and  summoned 
by  the  ringing  of  bells  swung  on  limbs  of  trees ;  presents 
of  cloth  and  trinkets  were  given  them  to  inspire  them 
with  trust,  and  thus  a  mission  was  founded.  Two  monks 
(never,  at  first,  more)  were  appointed  to  take  charge  of  this 
cross  and  booth,  and  to  win,  baptize,  convert,  and  teach 
all  the  Indians  to  be  reached  in  the  region.  They  had  for 
guard  and  help  a  few  soldiers,  and  sometimes  a  few  already 
partly  civilized  and  Christianized  Indians  ;  several  head  of 
cattle,  some  tools  and  seeds,  and  holy  vessels  for  the  church 


FATHER  JUN1PERO  AND  HIS   WORK.  45 

service,  completed  their  store  of  weapons,  spiritual  and 
secular,  offensive  and  defensive,  with  which  to  conquer  the 
wilderness  and  its  savages.  There  needs  no  work  of  the 
imagination  to  help  this  picture.  Taken  in  its  sternest 
realism,  it  is  vivid  and  thrilling ;  contrasting  the  wretched 
poverty  of  these  single-handed  beginnings  with  the  final 
splendor  and  riches  attained,  the  result  seems  wellnigh 
miraculous. 

From  the  rough  booth  of  boughs  and  reeds  of  1 770  to 
the  pillars,  arched  corridors,  and  domes  of  the  stately 
stone  churches  of  a  half-century  later,  is  a  change  only  a 
degree  less  wonderful  than  the  change  in  the  Indian,  from 
the  naked  savage  with  his  one  stone  tool,  grinding  acorn- 
meal  in  a  rock  bowl,  to  the  industrious  tiller  of  soil, 
weaver  of  cloth,  worker  in  metals,  and  singer  of  sacred 
hj-mns.  The  steps  of  this  change  were  slow  at  first.  In 
1772,  at  the  end  of  five  years'  work,  five  missions  had 
been  founded,  and  four  hundred  and  ninety-one  Indians 
baptized.  There  were  then,  in  these  five  missions,  but 
nineteen  friars  and  sixty  soldiers.  In  1786,  La  Perouse, 
a  French  naval  commander,  who  voyaged  along  the  Cali- 
fornia coast,  leaves  it  on  record  that  there  were  but  two 
hundred  and  eighty-two  soldiers,  and  about  one  hundred 
officers  and  friars,  all  told,  in  both  Upper  and  Lower  Cali- 
fornia, from  Cape  Saint  Lucas  to  San  Francisco,  a  line  of 
eight  hundred  leagues.  At  this  time  there  were  five  thou- 
sand one  hundred  and  forty-three  Indians,  in  the  missions 
of  Upper  California  alone.  In  the  year  1800  there  were, 
at  the  mission  of  San  Diego,  fifteen  hundred  and  twenty- 
one  Indians ;  and  the  San  Diego  garrison,  three  miles 
away  from  the  mission,  numbered  only  one  hundred  and 
sixt3~-seven  souls, — officers,  soldiers,  servants,  women, 
and  children.  Such  figures  as  these  seem  sufficient  refu- 
tation of  the  idea  sometimes  advanced,  that  the  Indians 
were  converted  by  force  and  held  in  subjection  by  terror. 
There  is  still  preserved,  in  the  archives  of  the  Franciscan 
College  at  Santa  Barbara,  a  letter  written  by  Father  Juni- 
pero  to  the  Vicero^y  of  Mexico,  in  1776,  imploring  him  to 
send  a  force  of  eighty  soldiers  to  be  divided  among  seven 
missions.  He  patiently  explains  that  the  friars,  stationed 
by  twos,  at  new  missions,  from  sixty  to  a  hundred  miles 
distant  from  each  other,  cannot  be  expected  to  feel  safe 


46  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

without  a  reasonable  militanr  protection  ;  and  he  asks  per- 
tinently what  defence  could  be  made,  "in  case  the  enemy 
should  tempt  the  Gentiles  to  attack  us."  That  there  was 
so  little  active  hostility  on  the  part  of  the  savage  tribes, 
that  the}'  looked  so  kindly  as  they  did  to  the  ways  and  re- 
straints of  the  new  life,  is  the  strongest  possible  proof  that 
the  methods  of  the  friars  in  dealing  with  them  must  have 
been  both  wise  and  humane. 

During  the  first  six  years  there  was  but  one  serious  out- 
break, —  that  at  San  Diego.  No  retaliation  was  shown  to- 
ward the  Indians  for  this ;  on  the  contrar}-,  the  orders  of 
both  friars  and  military  commanders  were  that  they  should 
be  treated  with  even  greater  kindness  than  before ;  and  in 
less  than  two  years  the  mission  buildings  were  rebuilt, 
under  a  guard  of  only  a  half-score  of  soldiers  with  hun- 
dreds of  Indians  looking  on,  and  many  helping  cheerfully 
in  the  work.  The  San  Carlos  Mission  at  Monterey  was 
Father  Junipero's  own  charge.  There  he  spent  all  his 
time,  when  not  called  away  by  his  duties  as  president  of 
the  missions.  There  he  died,  and  there  he  was  buried. 
There,  also,  his  beloved  friend  and  brother,  Father  Crespi, 
labored  by  his  side  for  thirteen  years.  Crespi  was  a  san- 
guine, joyous  man,  sometimes  called  El  Beato,  from  his 
happy  temperament.  No  doubt  his  gayety  made  Serra's 
sunshine  in  many  a  dark  day ;  and  grief  at  his  death  did 
much  to  break  down  the  splendid  old  man's  courage  and 
strength.  Only  a  few  months  before  it  occurred,  the}-  had 
gone  together  for  a  short  visit  to  their  comrade,  Father 
Palon,  at  the  San  Francisco  Mission.  When  the}-  took 
leave  of  him,  Crespi  said,  "  Farewell  forever ;  3-011  will 
see  me  no  more."  This  was  late  in  the  autumn  of  1781, 
and  on  New  Year's  Day,  1782,  he  died,  aged  sixty  years, 
and  having  spent  half  of  those  years  in  laboring  for  the 
Indians.  Serra  lived  only  two  years  longer,  and  is  said 
never  to  have  been  afterwards  the  same  as  before.  For 
many  years  he  had  been  a  great  sufferer  from  an  affection 
of  the  heart,  — aggravated,  if  not  induced,  by  his  fierce 
beatings  of  his  breast  with  a  stone  while  he  was  preach- 
ing. But  physical  pain  seemed  to  make  no  impression  on 
his  mind.  If  it  did  not  incapacitate  him  for  action,  he 
held  it  of  no  account.  Only  the  year  before  his  death, 
being  then  seventy  years  old,  and  very  lame,  he  had  jour- 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS   WORK.  47 

neyed  on  foot  from  San  Diego  to  Monterey,  visiting  every 
mission  and  turning  aside  into  all  the  Indian  settlements 
on  the  way.  At  this  time  there  were  on  the  Santa  Bar- 
bara coast  alone,  within  a  space  of  eighty  miles,  twent}T- 
one  villages  of  Indians,  roughly  estimated  as  containing 
between  twenty  and  thirty  thousand  souls.  He  is  said  to 
have  gone  weeping  from  village  to  village  because  he 
could  do  nothing  for  them. 

He  reached  San  Carlos  in  January,  1784,  and  never 
again  went  away.  The  story  of  his  last  hours  and  death  is 
in  the  old  church  records  of  Monterey,  written  there  by 
the  hand  of  the  sorrowing  Palon,  the  second  day  after  he 
had  closed  his  friend's  eyes.  It  is  a  quaint  and  touching 
narrative. 

Up  to  the  day  before  his  death,  his  indomitable  will  up- 
holding the  failing  strength  of  his  dying  body,  Father 
Junipero  had  read  in  the  church  the  canonical  offices  of 
each  day,  a  service  requiring  an  hour  and  a  half  of  time. 
The  evening  before  his  death  he  walked  alone  to  the 
church  to  receive  the  last  sacrament.  The  church  was 
crowded  to  overflowing  with  Indians  and  whites,  many 
crying  aloud  in  uncontrollable  grief. 

Father  Junipero  knelt  before  the  altar  with  great  fervor 
of  manner,  while  Father  Palon,  with  tears  rolling  down 
his  cheeks,  read  the  services  for  the  d}-ing,  gave  him  abso- 
lution, and  administered  the  Holy  Viaticum.  Then  rose 
from  choked  and  tremulous  voices  the  strains  of  the  grand 
hymn  "  Tantum  Ergo,"  — 

"  Tantum  ergo  Sacramentum 

Veneremur  eernui, 
Et  antiquum  documenttttn 

Novo  cedat  ritui ; 
Praestet  fides  supplementum 

Sensuum  defectui. 

"  Genitori  genitoque 

Laus  et  jubilatio, 
Salus,  honor,  virtus  quoque 

Sit  et  benedictio  ; 
Procedenti  ab  utroque 

Compar  sit  laudatio." 

A  startled  thrill  ran  through  the  church  as  Father  Ju- 
nipero's  own  voice,  "high  and  strong  as  ever,"  says  the 


48  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

record,  joined  in  the  hymn.  One  by  one  the  voices  of 
his  people  broke  down,  stifled  by  sobs,  until  at  last  the 
dying  man's  voice,  almost  alone,  finished  the  hymn.  Af- 
ter this  he  gave  thanks,  and  returning  to  his  cell-like 
room  spent  the  whole  of  the  night  in  listening  to  peni- 
tential psalms  and  litanies,  and  giving  thanks  to  God ;  all 
the  time  kneeling  or  sitting  on  the  ground  supported  by, 
the  loving  and  faithful  Palon.  In  the  morning,  early, 
he  asked  for  the  plenary  indulgence,  for  which  he  again 
knelt,  and  confessed  again.  At  noon  the  chaplain  and 
the  captain  of  the  bark  kt  St.  Joseph,"  then  lying  in  port 
at  Monterey,  came  to  visit  him.  He  welcomed  them,  and 
cordially  embracing  the  chaplain,  said,  "  You  have  come 
just  in  time  to  cast  the  .earth  upon  my  body."  After  they 
took  their  leave,  he  asked  Palon  to  read  to  him  again  the 
Recommendations  of  the  Soul.  At  its  conclusion  he  re- 
sponded earnestly,  in  as  clear  voice  as  in  health,  adding, 
11  Thank  God,  I  am  now  without  fear."  Then  with  a  firm 
step  he  walked  to  the  kitchen,  saying  that  he  would  like  a 
cup  of  broth.  As  soon  as  he  had  taken  the  broth,  he 
exclaimed,  "I  feel  better  now;  I  will  rest;"  and  lying 
down  he  closed  his  eyes,  and  without  another  word  or 
sign  of  struggle  or  pain  ceased  to  breathe,  entering  in- 
deed into  a  rest  of  which  Ms  last  word  had  been  solemnly 
prophetic. 

Ever  since  morning  the  grief-stricken  people  had  been 
waiting  and  listening  for  the  tolling  death-bell  to  announce 
that  all  was  over.  At  its  first  note  they  came  in  crowds, 
breathless,  weeping,  and  lamenting.  It  was  with  great 
difficulty  that  the  soldiers  could  keep  them  from  tearing 
Father  Junipero's  habit  piecemeal  from  his  body,  so  ar- 
dent was  their  desire  to  possess  some  relic  of  him.  The 
corpse  was  laid  at  once  in  a  coffin  which  he  himself  had 
ordered  made  many  weeks  before.  The  vessels  in  port 
fired  a  salute  of  one  hundred  and  one  guns,  answered  by 
the  same  from  the  guns  of  the  presidio  at  Monterey,  —  an 
honor  given  to  no  one  below  the  rank  of  general.  But 
the  hundred  gun  salutes  were  a  paltry  honor  in  compari- 
son with  the  tears  of  the  Indian  congregation.  Soldiers 
kept  watch  around  his  coffin  night  and  day  till  the  burial ; 
but  they  could  not  hold  back  the  throngs  of  the  poor  crea- 
tures who  pressed  to  touch  the  hand  of  the  father  they 


FATHER  JUN1PERO  AND  HIS   WORK.  49 

had  so  much  loved,  and  to  bear  away  something,  if  only  a 
thread,  of  the  garments  he  had  worn. 

His  ardent  and  impassioned  nature  and  his  untiring  la- 
bors had  won  their  deepest  affection  and  confidence.  It 
was  his  habit  when  at  San  Carlos  to  spend  all  his  time 
with  them,  working  by  their  side  in  the  fields,  making 
adobe,  digging,  tilling,  doing,  in  short,  all  that  he  required 
of  them.  Day  after  day  he  thus  labored,  only  desisting 
at  the  hours  for  performing  offices  in  the  church.  When- 
ever an  Indian  came  to  address  him,  he  made  the  sign  of 
the  cross  on  his  forehead,  and  spoke  to  him  some  words  of 
spiritual  injunction  or  benediction.  The  arbitrariness  —  or, 
as  some  of  his  enemies  called  it,  haughty  self-will  —  which 
brought  Serra  at  times  into  conflict  with  the  military  au- 
thorities when  their  purposes  or  views  clashed  with  his 
own,  never  came  to  the  surface  in  his  spiritual  functions, 
or  in  his  relation  with  the  Indian  converts.  He  loved 
them,  and  yearned  over  them  as  brands  to  be  snatched 
from  the  burning.  He  had  baptized  over  one  thousand  of 
them  with  his  own  hands  ;  his  whole  life  he  spent  for  them, 
and  was  read3T  at  any  moment  to  lay  it  down  if  that  would 
have  benefited  them  more.  Absolute  single-heartedness 
like  this  is  never  misunderstood  by,  and  never  antagonizes 
equally  single-hearted  people,  either  high  or  low.  But  to 
be  absolutely  single-hearted  in  a  moral  purpose  is  almost 
inevitably  to  be  doggedly  one-ideaed  in  regard  to  practical 
methods ;  and  the  single-hearted,  one-ideaed  man,  with  a 
great  moral  purpose,  is  sure  to  be  often  at  swords'  points 
with  average  men.  of  selfish  interests  and  mixed  notions. 
This  is  the  explanation  of  the  fact  that  the  later  }-ears  of 
Serra's  life  were  marred  by  occasional  collisions  with  the 
military  authorities  in  the  country.  No  doubt  the  impetu- 
osity of  his  nature  made  him  sometimes  hot  in  resentment 
and  indiscreet  of  speech.  But  in  spite  of  these  failings, 
he  yet  remains  the  foremost,  grandest  figure  in  the  mis- 
sions' history.  If  his  successors  in  their  administration 
had  been  equal  to  him  in  spiritualit}',  enthusiasm,  and  in- 
tellect, the  mission  establishments  would  never  have  been 
so  utterly  overthrown  and  ruined. 

Father  Junipero  sleeps  on  the  spot  where  he  labored  and 
died.  His  grave  is  under  the  ruins  of  the  beautiful  stone 
church  of  his  mission,  —  the  church  which  he  saw  only 
4 


50  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

in  ardent  and  longing  fancy.  It  was  perhaps  the  most 
beautiful,  though  not  the  grandest  of  the  mission  churches  ; 
and  its  ruins  have  to-day  a  charm  far  exceeding  all  the 
others.  The  fine  yellow  tint  of  the  stone,  the  grand  and 
unique  contour  of  the  arches,  the  beautiful  star-shaped 
window  in  the  front,  the  simple  yet  effective  lines  of  carv- 
ing on  pilaster  and  pillar  and  doorway,  the  symmetrical 
Moorish  tower  and  dome,  the  worn  steps  leading  up  to  the 
belfry,  —  all  make  a  picture  whose  beauty,  apart  from  hal- 
lowing associations,  is  enough  to  hold  one  spell-bound. 
Reverent  Nature  has  rebuilt  with  grass  and  blossoms  even 
the  crumbling  window-sills,  across  which  the  wind  blows 
free  from  the  blue  ocean  just  beyond  ;  and  on  the  day  we 
saw  the  place,  golden  wheat,  fresh  reaped,  was  piled  in 
loose  mounds  on  the  south  slope  below  the  church's  south- 
ern wall.  It  reminded  me  of  the  tales  I  had  heard  from 
many  aged  men  and  women  of  a  beautiful  custom  the  In- 
dians had  of  scattering  their  choicest  grains  on  the  ground 
at  the  friars'  feet,  as  a  token  of  homage. 

The  roof  of  the  church  long  ago  fell  in  ;  its  doors  have 
stood  open  for  years ;  and  the  fierce  sea-gales  have  been 
sweeping  in,  piling  sands  until  a  great  part  of  the  floor  is 
covered  with  solid  earth  on  which  every  summer  grasses 
and  weeds  grow  high  enough  to  be  cut  by  sickles.  Of  the 
thousands  of  acres  which  the  Mission  Indians  once  culti- 
vated in  the  San  Carlos  valley,  only  nine  were  finally  de- 
creed by  the  United  States  Government  to  belong  to  the 
church.  These  were  so  carelessly  surveyed  that  no  avenue 
of  approach  was  left  open  to  the  mission  buildings,  and  a 
part  of  the  land  had  to  be  sold  to  buy  a  right  of  way  to  the 
church.  The  remnant  left  makes  a  little  farm,  by  the  rental 
of  which  a  man  can  be  hired  to  take  charge  of  the  whole 
place,  and  keep  it,  if  possible,  from  further  desecration 
and  ruin.  The  present  keeper  is  a  devout  Portuguese, 
whose  broken  English  becomes  eloquent  as  he  speaks  of 
the  old  friars  whose  graves  he  guards. 

"  Dem  work  for  civilize."  he  said,  "  not  work  for  money. 
Dey  work  to  religion." 

In  clearing  away  the  earth  at  the  altar  end  of  the  church, 
in  the  winter  of  1882,  this  man  came  upon  stone  slabs  evi- 
dently covering  graves.  On  opening  one  of  these  graves, 
it  was  found  to  hold  three  collins.  "From  the  minute  de- 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS   WORK.  51 

scription,  in  the  old  records,  of  Father  Junipero's  place  of 
burial,  Father  Carenova,  the  priest  now  in  charge  of  the 
Monterey  parish,  became  convinced  that  one  of  these  coffins 
must  be  his.  On  the  opposite  side  of  the  church  is  another 
grave,  where  are  buried  two  of  the  earliest  governors  of 
California. 

It  is  a  disgrace  to  both  the  Catholic  Church  and  the 
State  of  California  that  this  grand  old  ruin,  with  its  sacred 
sepulchres,  should  be  left  to  crumble  away.  If  nothing  is 
done  to  protect  and  save  it,  one  short  hundred  years  more 
will  see  it  a  shapeless,  wind-swept  mound  of  sand.  It  is 
not  in  our  power  to  confer  honor  or  bring  dishonor  on  the 
illustrious  dead.  We  ourselves,  alone,  are  dishonored 
when  we  fail  in  reverence  to  them.  The  grave  of  Juni- 
pero  Serra  may  be  buried  centuries  deep,  and  its  ver}-  place 
forgotten  ;  yet  his  name  will  not  perish,  nor  his  fame  suffer. 
But  for  the  men  of  the  country  whose  civilization  he 
founded,  and  of  the  Church  whose  faith  he  so  glonfied,  to 
permit  his  burial-place  to  sink  into  oblivion,  is  a  shame 
indeed ! 


II. 

IF  the  little  grief-stricken  band  of  monks  who  stood 
weeping  around  Junipero  Serra's  grave  in  1784  could 
have  foreseen  the  events  of  the  next  thirty  years,  their 
weeping  would  have  been  turned  into  exultant  joy ;  but 
not  the  most  daring  enthusiast  among  them  could  have 
dreamed  of  the  harvest  of  power  destined  to  be  raised 
from  the  seed  thus  sown  in  weakness. 

Almost  with  his  dying  breath  Father  Junipero  had 
promised  to  use  "  all  his  influence  with  God  "  in  behalf  of 
the  missions.  In  the  course  of  the  next  four  months 
after  his  death  more  converts  were  baptized  than  in  the 
whole  three  j-ears  previous ;  and  it  became  at  once  the 
common  belief  that  his  soul  had  passed  directly  into 
heaven,  and  that  this  great  wave  of  conversions  was  the 


52  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

result  of  his  prayers.  Prosperity  continued  steadily  to 
increase.  Mission  after  mission  was  successfully  founded, 
until,  in  1804,  the  occupation  of  the  sea-coast  line  from 
San  Francisco  to  San  Diego  was  complete,  there  be- 
ing nineteen  mission  establishments  only  an  easy  day's 
journey  apart  from  each  other. 

The  ten  new  missions  were  founded  in  the  following 
order:  Santa  Barbara,  Dec.  4,  1786;  La  Purissima,  Dec. 
8,  1787;  Santa  Cruz,  Sept.  25,  1791;  Soledad,  Oct.  9, 
1791;  San  Jose,  June  11,  1797;  San  Juan  Bautista, 
June1 24,  1797  ;  San  Miguel,  July  25,  1797  ;  San  Fernando 
Key,  Sept.  8,  1797 ;  San  Luis  Key  de  Francia,  June  18, 
1798 ;  Santa  Inez,  Sept.  7,  1804. 

Beginnings  had  also  been  made  on  a  projected  second 
line,  to  be  from  thirty  to  fifty  miles  back  from  the  sea ; 
and  this  inland  chain  of  settlements  and  development 
promised  to  be  in  no  way  inferior  to  the  first.  The 
wealth  of  the  mission  establishments  had  grown  to  an  al- 
most incredible  degree.  In  several  of  them  massive  stone 
churches  had  been  built,  of  an  architecture  at  once  so 
simple  and  harmonious  that,  even  in  ruins,  it  is  to-day 
the  grandest  in  America ;  and  it  will  remain,  so  long  as 
arch,  pillar,  or  dome  of  it  shall  stand,  a  noble  and  touch- 
ing monument  of  the  patient  Indian  workers  who  built, 
and  of  the  devoted  friars  who  designed,  its  majestic  and 
graceful  proportions. 

In  all  of  the  missions  were  buildings  on  a  large  scale, 
providing  for  hundreds  of  occupants,  for  all  the  necessary 
trades  and  manufactures,  and  many  of  the  ornamental 
arts  of  civilized  life.  Enormous  tracts  of  land  were  un- 
der high  cultivation  ;  the  grains  and  cool  fruits  of  the 
temperate  zone  flourishing,  in  the  marvellous  California 
air,  side  by  side  with  the  palm,  olive,  grape,  fig,  orange, 
and  pomegranate.  From  the  two  hundred  head  of  cattle 
sent  by  the  wise  Galvez,  had  grown  herds  past  number- 
ing ;  and  to  these  had  been  added  vast  flocks  of  sheep 
and  herds  of  horses.  In  these  nineteen  missions  were 
gathered  over  twentj-  thousand  Indians,  leading  regular 
and  industrious  lives,  and  conforming  to  the  usages  of  the 
Catholic  religion. 

A  description  of  the  San  Luis  Key  Mission,  written  by 
De  Mofras,  an  attache  of  the  French  Locution  in  Mexico 


FATHER  JUN1PERO  AND  HIS    WORK.  53 

in  1842,  gives  a  clear  idea  of  the  form,  and  some  of  the 
methods,  of  the  mission  establishments:  — 

"  The  building  is  a  quadrilateral,  four  hundred  and  fifty  feet 
square;  the  church  occupies  one  of  its  wings;  the  facade  is  or- 
namented with  a  gallery.  The  building  is  two  stories  in  height. 
The  interior  is  formed  by  a  court  ornamented  with  fountains, 
and  decorated  with  trees.  Upon  the  gallery  which  runs  around 
it  open  the  dormitories  of  the  monks,  of  the  majors-domo,  and 
of  travellers,  small  workshops,  schoolrooms,  and  storerooms. 
The  hospitals  are  situated  in  the  most  quiet  parts  of  the  mis- 
sion, where  also  the  schools  are  kept.  The  young  Indian  girls 
dwell  in  halls  called  monasteries,  and  are  called  nuns.  Placed 
under  the  care  of  Indian  matrons,  who  are  worthy  of  confidence, 
they  learn  to  make  cloth  of  wool,  cotton,  and  flax,  and  do  not 
leave  the  monastery  until  they  are  old  enough  to  be  married. 
The  Indian  children  mingle  in  schools  with  those  of  the  white 
colonists.  A  certain  number  chosen  among  the  pupils  who  dis- 
play the  most  intelligence  learn  music,  chanting,  the  violin, 
flute,  horn,  violoncello,  or  other  instruments.  Those  who  dis- 
tinguish themselves  in  the  carpenters'  shops,  at  the  forge,  or  in 
agricultural  labors  are  appointed  alcaldes,  or  overseers,  and 
charged  with  the  directions  of  the  laborers." 

Surrounding  these  buildings,  or  arranged  in  regular 
streets  upon  one  side  of  them,  were  the  homes  of  the  In- 
dian families.  These  were  built  of  adobe,  or  of  reeds, 
after  the  native  fashion.  The  daily  routine  of  the  In- 
dians' life  was  simple  and  uniform.  They  were  divided 
into  squads  of  laborers.  At  sunrise  the  Angelus  bell 
called  them  to  mass.  After  the  mass  they  breakfasted, 
and  then  dispersed  to  their  various  labors.  At  eleven 
they  were  again  summoned  together  for  dinner,  after 
which  they  rested  until  two,  when  they  went  again  to 
work,  and  worked  until  the  evening  Angelus,  just  before 
sunset.  After  prayers  and  supper  they  were  in  the  habit 
of  dancing  and  playing  games  until  bedtime.  Their  food 
was  good.  They  had  meat  at  noon,  accompanied  by 
posale,  a  sort  of  succotash  made  of  corn,  beans,  and 
wheat,  boiled  together.  Their  breakfast  and  supper  were 
usually  of  porridge  made  from  different  grains,  called  atole 
and  pinole. 

The  men  wore  linen  shirts,  pantaloons,  and  blankets. 
The  overseers  and  best  workmen  had  suits  of  cloth  like 


54  CALIFORNIA  AND   OREGON. 

the  Spaniards.     The  women  received  every  year  two  che- 
mises, one  gown,  and  a  blanket.     De  Mofras  says  :  — 

"  When  the  hides,  tallow,  grain,  wine,  and  oil  were  sold  at 
good  prices  to  ships  from  abroad,  the  monks  distributed  hand- 
kerchiefs, wearing  apparel,  tobacco,  and  trinkets  among  the 
Indians,  and  devoted  the  surplus  to  the  embellishment  of  the 
churches,  the  purchase  of  musical  instruments,  pictures,  church 
ornaments,  etc. ;  still  they  were  careful  to  keep  a  part  of  the 
harvest  in  the  granaries  to  provide  for  years  of  scarcity." 

The  rule  of  the  friars  was  in  the  main  a  kindly  one. 
The  vice  of  drunkenness  was  severely  punished  by  flog- 
ging. Quarrelling  between  husbands  and  wives  was  also 
dealt  with  summarily,  the  offending  parties  being  chained 
together  by  the  leg  till  they  were  glad  to  promise  to  keep 
peace.  New  converts  and  recruits  were  secured  in  many 
ways  :  somejtimes  by  sending  out  parties  of  those  already 
attached  to  the  new  mode  of  life,  and  letting  them  set 
forth  to  the  savages  the  advantages  and  comforts  of  the 
Christian  way ;  sometimes  by  luring  strangers  in  with 
gifts ;  sometimes,  it  is  said,  by  capturing  them  by  main 
force ;  but  of  this  there  is  only  scanty  evidence,  and  it  is 
not  probable  that  it  was  often  practised.  It  has  also  been 
said  that  cruel  and  severe  methods  were  used  to  compel 
the  Indians  to  work ;  that  the}'  were  driven  under  the 
lash  by  their  overseers,  and  goaded  with  lances  by  the 
soldiers.  No  doubt  there  were  individual  instances  of 
cruelty ;  seeds  of  it  being  indigenous  in  human  nature, 
such  absolute  control  of  hundreds  of  human  beings  could 
not  exist  without  some  abuses  of  the  power.  But  that 
the  Indians  were,  on  the  whole,  well  treated  and  cared 
for,  the  fact  that  so  many  thousands  of  them  chose  to 
remain  in  the  missions  is  proof.  With  open  wilderness 
on  all  sides,  and  with  thousands  of  savage  friends  and 
relatives  close  at  hand,  nothing  but  their  own  free  will 
could  have  kept  such  numbers  of  them  loyal  and  con- 
tented. Forbes,  in  his  history  of  California,  written  in 
1832,  says :  — 

"  The  best  and  most  unequivocal  proof  of  the  good  conduct 
of  the  fathers  is  to  be  found  in  the  unbounded  affection  and 
devotion  invariably  shown  toward  them  by  their  Indian  sub- 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS    WORK.  55 

jects.     They  venerate  them  not  merely  as  friends  and  fathers, 
but  with  a  degree  of  devotion  approaching  to  adoration." 

The  picture  of  life  in  one  of  these  missions  during  their 
period  of  prosperity  is  unique  and  attractive.  The  whole 
place  was  a  hive  of  industry :  trades  plying  indoors  and 
outdoors ;  tillers,  herders,  vintagers  by  hundreds,  going 
to  and  fro ;  children  in  schools  ;  women  spinning ;  bands 
of  young  men  practising  on  musical  instruments ;  music, 
the  scores  of  which,  in  many  instances,  they  had  them- 
selves written  out;  at  evening,  all  sorts  of  games  of 
running,  leaping,  dancing,  and  ball-throwing,  and  the 
picturesque  ceremonies  of  a  religion  which  has  always  been 
wise  in  availing  itself  of  beautiful  agencies  in  color,  form, 
and  harmony. 

At  every  mission  were  walled  gardens  with  waving 
palms,  sparkling  fountains,  groves  of  olive  trees,  broad 
vineyards,  and  orchards  of  all  manner  of  fruits  ;  over  all. 
the  sunny,  delicious,  winterless  California  sky. 

More  than  mortal,  indeed,  must  the  Franciscans  have 
been,  to  have  been  able,  under  these  conditions,  to  pre*- 
serve  intact  the  fervor  and  spirit  of  self-abnegation  and 
deprivation  inculcated  by  the  rules  of  their  order.  There 
is  a  half-comic  pathos  in  the  records  of  occasional  efforts 
made  by  one  and  another  of  the  presidents  to  check  the 
growing  disposition  toward  ease  on  the  part  of  the  friars. 
At  one  time  several  of  them  were  found  to  be  carrying 
silver  watches.  The  watches  were  taken  away,  and  sent 
to  Guadalajara  to  be  sold,  the  money  to  be  paid  into 
the  Church  treasury.  At  another  time  an  order  was  is- 
sued, forbidding  the  wearing  of  shoes  and  stockings  in 
place  of  sandals,  and  the  occupying  of  too  large  and  com- 
fortable rooms.  And  one  zealous  president,  finding  that 
the  friars  occasionally  rode  in  the  carts  belonging  to  their 
missions,  had  all  the  carts  burned,  to  compel  the  fathers 
to  go  about  on  foot. 

The  friars  were  forced,  by  the  very  facts  of  their  situa- 
tion, into  the  exercise  of  a  constant  and  abounding  hospi- 
tality ;  and  this  of  itself  inevitably  brought  about  large 
departures  from  the  ascetic  regime  of  living  originally 
preached  and  practised.  Most  royally  did  they  discharge 
the  obligations  of  this  hospitality.  Travellers'  rooms  were 


56  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

kept  always  ready  in  every  mission  ;  and  there  were  even 
set  apart  fruit  orchards  called  "travellers'  orchards."  A 
man  might  ride  from  San  Diego  to  Monterey  by  easy  day's 
journeys,  spending  each  night  as  guest  in  a  mission  estab- 
lishment. As  soon  as  he  rode  up,  an  Indian  page  would 
appear  to  take  his  horse  ;  another  to  show  him  to  one  of 
the  travellers'  rooms.  He  was  served  with  the  best  of  food 
and  wine  as  long  as  he  liked  to  stay,  and  when  he  left  he 
might,  if  he  wished,  take  from  the  mission  -herd  a  fresh 
horse  to  cany  him  on  his  journey.  All  the  California 
voyagers  and  travellers  of  the  time  speak  in  glowing  terms 
of  this  generous  and  cordial  entertaining  by  the  friars. 
It  was,  undoubtedly,  part  of  their  policy  as  representatives 
of  the  State,  but  it  was  no  less  a  part  of  their  duty  as 
Franciscans. 

Some  of  the  highest  tributes  which  have  been  paid  to 
them,  both  as  men  and  as  administrators  of  affairs,  have 
come  from  strangers  who,  thus  sojourning  under  their 
roofs,  had  the  best  opportunity  of  knowing  their  lives. 
Says  Forbes :  — 

"  Their  conduct  has  been  marked  by  a  degree  of  benevolence, 
humanity,  and  moderation  probably  unexampled  in  any  other 
situation.  ...  I  have  never  heard  that  they  have  not  acted  with 
the  most  perfect  fidelity,  or  that  they  ever  betrayed  a  trust,  or 
acted  with  inhumanity." 

This  testimony  is  of  the  more  weight  that  it  comes  from 
a  man  not  in  sympathy  with  either  the  religious  or  the 
secular  system  on  which  the  friars'  labors  were  based. 

The  tales  still  told  by  old  people  of  festal  occasions  at 
the  missions  sound  like  tales  of  the  Old  World  rather  than 
of  the  New.  There  was  a  strange  difference,  fifty  years 
ago,  between  the  atmosphere  of  life  on  the  east  and 
west  sides  of  the  American  continent:  on  the  Atlantic 
shore,  the  descendants  of  the  Puritans,  weighed  down 
by  serious  purpose,  half  grudging  the  time  for  their  one 
staid  yearly  Thanksgiving,  and  driving  the  Indians  farther 
and  farther  into  the  wilderness  ever}'  year,  fighting  and 
killing  them  ;  on  the  sunny  Pacific  shore,  the  merry  peo- 
ple of  Mexican  and  Spanish  blood,  troubling  themselves 
about  nothing,  dancing  away  whole  days  and  nights  like 
children,  while  their  priests  were  gathering  the  Indians 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  BIS  WORK.  57 

b}r  thousands  into  communities,  and  feeding  and  teaching 
them. 

The  most  beautiful  woman  known  in  California  a  half- 
century  ago1  still  lives  in  Santa  Barbara,  white-haired, 
bright-eyed,  eloquent-tougued  to-da}'.  At  the  time  of  her 
marriage,  her  husband  being  a  brother  of  the  Superior  of 
the  Santa  Barbara  mission,  her  wedding  banquet  was 
spread  on  tables  running  the  whole  length  of  the  outer 
corridor  of  the  mission.  For  three  days  and  three  nights 
the  feasting  and  dancing  were  kept  up,  and  the  whole 
town  was  bid.  On  the  day  after  her  wedding  came  the 
christening  or  blessing  of  the  right  tower  of  the  church. 
She  and  her  husband,  having  been  chosen  godfather  and 
godmother  to  the  tower,  walked  in  solemn  procession 
around  it,  carrying  lighted  candles  in  their  hands,  pre- 
ceded b}'  the  friar,  who  sprinkled  it  with  holy  water  and 
burned  incense.  In  the  four  long  streets  of  Indians' 
houses,  then  running  eastward  from  the  mission,  booths 
of  green  boughs,  decorated  with  flowers,  were  set  up  in 
front  of  all  the  doors.  Companies  of  Indians  from  other 
missions  came  as  guests,  dancing  and  singing  as  they  ap- 
proached. Their  Indian  hosts  went  out  to  meet  them, 
also  singing,  and  pouring  out  seeds  on  the  ground  for 
them  to  walk  on.  These  were  descendants  of  the  Indians 
who,  when  Viscayno  anchored  off  Santa  Barbara  in  1602, 
came  out  in  canoes,  bringing  their  king,  and  rowed  three 
times  around  Viscayno's  ship,  chanting  a  chorus  of  wel- 
come. Then  the  king,  going  on  board  the  ship,  walked 
three  times  around  the  deck,  chanting  the  same  song. 
He  then  gave  to  the  Spaniards  gifts  of  all  the  simple  foods 
he  had,  and  implored  them  to  land,  promising  that  if  they 
would  come  and  be  their  bi'others,  he  would  give  to  each 
man  ten  wives. 

AVith  the  increase  of  success,  wealth,  and  power  on  the 
part  of  the  missions  came  increasing  complexities  in  their 
relation  to  the  military  settlements  in  the  countrj'.  The 
original  Spanish  plan  of  colonization  was  threefold,  — 
religious,  military,  and  civil.  Its  first  two  steps  were  a 
mission  and  a  presidio,  or  garrison,  — the  presidio  to  be  the 
guard  of  the  mission ;  later  was  to  come  the  pueblo,1  or 

1  "The  term  'pueblo 'answers  to  that  of  the  English  word  'town,' 
in  all  its  vagueness  and  all  its  precision.  As  the  word  '  town '  in 


58  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

town.  From  indefiniteness  in  the  understanding  of  prop- 
tTtv  rights,  and  rights  of  authority,  as  vested  under  these 
three  heads,  there  very  soon  arose  confusion,  which  led  to 
collisions,  —  collisions  which  have  not  yet  ceased,  and 
never  will,  so  long  as  there  remains  a  land-title  in  Cali- 
fornia to  be  quarrelled  over.  The  law  records  of  the  State 
are  brimful  of  briefs,  counter-briefs,  opinions,  and  counter- 
opinions  regarding  property  issues,  all  turning  on  defini- 
tions which  nobody  has  now  clear  right  to  make,  of  old 
pueblo  and  presidio  titles  and  bounds. 

In  the  beginning  there  were  no  grants  of  land ;  every- 
thing was  done  by  royal  decree.  In  the  form  of  taking 
possession  of  the  new  lands,  the  Church,  by  right  of  sacred 
honor,  came  first,  the  religious  ceremony  always  preceding 
the  military.  Not  till  the  cross  was  set  up,  and  the 
ground  consecrated  and  taken  possession  of,  in  the  name 
of  God,  for  the  Church's  purposes,  did  any  military  com- 
mander ever  think  of  planting  the  royal  standard,  symbol- 
izing the  king's  possession.  In  the  early  days  the  relations 
between  the  military  and  the  ecclesiastical  representatives 
of  the  king  were  comparatively  simple :  the  soldiers  were 
sent  avowedly  and  specifically  to  protect  the  friars  ;  more- 
over, in  those  earlier  days,  soldiers  and  friars  were  alike 
devout,  and,  no  doubt,  had  the  mission  interests  more 
equally  at  heart  than  they  did  later.  But  each  year's  in- 
crease of  numbers  in  the  garrisons,  and  of  numbers  and 
power  in  the  missions,  increased  the  possibilities  of  clash- 
ing, until  finally  the  relations  between  the  two  underwent  a 
singular  reversal ;  and  the  friars,  if  disposed  to  be  satirical, 
might  well  have  said  that,  however  bad  a  rule  might  be 
which  would  not  work  both  ways,  a  rule  which  did  was  not  of 
m-iv>sity  a  good  one,  it  being  now  the  duty  of  the  missions 
to  support  the  presidios ;  the  military  governors  being  au- 
thorized to  draw  upon  the  friars  not  only  for  supplies,  but 
for  contributions  of  money  and  for  levies  of  laborers.1 

English  generally  embraces  every  kind  of  population  from  the  village 
to  the  city,  and  also,  used  specifically,  signifies  a  town  corporate 
and  politic,  so  the  word  '  pueblo '  in  Spanish  ranges  from  the  hamlet 
to  the  city,  but,  used  emphatically,  signifies  a  town  corporate  and 
politic."  —  DWINELLE'S  Colonial  History  of  San  Francisco. 

1  In  the  decade  between  1801  and  1810  the  missions  furnished  to 
the  presidios  about  eighteen  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  supplies  each 
year. 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS   WORK.  59 

On  the  other  hand,  no  lands  could  be  set  off  or  assigned 
for  colonists  without  consent  of  the  friars,  and  there  were 
man}-  other  curious  and  entangling  cross-purpose  powers 
distributed  between  friars  and  military  governors  quite 
sufficient  to  make  it  next  to  impossible  for  things  to  go 
smoothly. 

The  mission  affairs,  so  far  as  their  own  internal  interests 
were  concerned,  were  administered  with  admirable  sim- 
plicity and  system.  The  friars  in  charge  of  the  missions 
were  responsible  directly  to  the  president,  or  prefect,  of  the 
missions.  He,  in  turn,  was  responsible  to  the  president, 
or  guai'dian,  .of  the  Franciscan  College  in  San  Fernando, 
in  Mexico.  One  responsible  officer,  called  procurador, 
was  kept  in  the  city  of  Mexico  to  buy  supplies  for  the 
missions  from  stipends  due,  and  from  the  drafts  given 
to  the  friars  by  the  presidio  commanders  for  goods  fur- 
nished to  the  presidios.  There  was  also  a  syndic,  or 
general  agent,  at  San  Bias,  who  attended  to  the  shipping 
and  forwarding  of  supplies.  It  was  a  happy  combination 
of  the  minimum  of  functionaries  with  the  maximum  of 
responsibility. 

The  income  supporting  the  missions  was  derived  from 
two  sources,  the  first  of  which  was  a  fund,  called  the 
"Pious  Fund,"  originally  belonging  to  the  Jesuit  order, 
but  on  the  suppression  of  that  order,  in  1868,  taken  pos- 
session of  by  the  Spanish  Government  in  trust  for  the 
Church.  This  fund,  begun  early  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, was  made  up  of  estates,  mines,  manufactories,  and 
flocks,  — all  gifts  of  rich  Catholics  to  the  Society  of  Jesus. 
It  yielded  an  income  of  fifty  thousand  dollars  a  year,  the 
whole  of  which  belonged  to  the  Church,  and  was  to  be 
used  in  paying  stipends  to  the  friars  (to  the  Dominicans 
in  Lower  as  well  as  to  the  Franciscans  in  Upper  California), 
and  in  the  purchasing  of  articles  needed  in  the  missions. 
The  missions'  second  source  of  income  was  from  the  sales 
of  their  own  products  :  first  to  the  presidios,  — these  sales 
paid  for  by  drafts  on  the  Spanish  or  Mexican  Government ; 
second,  to  trading  ships,  coming  more  and  more  each  year 
to  the  California  coast. 

As  soon  as  revolutionary  troubles  began  to  agitate 
Spain  and  Mexico,  the  income  of -the  missions  from 
abroad  began  to  fall  off.  The  Pious  Fund  was  too  big 


60  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

a  sum  to  be  honestly  administered  by  any  government 
hard  pressed  for  money.  Spain  began  to  filch  from  it 
etirlv,  to  pay  the  bills  of  her  wars  with  Portugal  and  Eng- 
land ;  and  Mexico,  as  soon  as  she  had  the  chance,  fol- 
lowed Spain's  example  vigorously,  selling  whole  estates 
and  pocketing  their  price,  farming  the  fund  out  for  the 
benefit  of  the  State  treasury,  and,  finally,  in  Santa  Anna's 
time,  selling  the  whole  outright  to  two  banking-houses. 
During  these  troublous  times  the  friars  not  only  failed 
frequently  to  receive  their  regular  stipends  allotted  from 
the  interest  of  this  Pious  Fund,  but  their  agent  was  unable 
to  collect  the  money  due  them  for  the  supplies  furnished 
to  the  presidios.  The  sums  of  which  they  were  thus 
robbed  by  two  governments  —  that,  being  ostensibly  of  the 
Catholic  faith,  should  surely  have  held  the  Church's  prop- 
ertv  sacred  —  mounted  up  in  a  few  years  to  such  enor- 
mous figures  that  restitution  would  have  been  practically 
impossible,  and,  except  for  their  own  internal  sources  of 
revenue,  the  missions  must  have  come  to  bankruptcy  and 
ruin. 

However,  the  elements  which  were  to  bring  about  this 
ruin  were  already  at  work,  —  were,  indeed,  inherent  in  the 
very  system  on  which  the}'  had  been  founded.  The  Span- 
ish Government  was  impatient  to  see  carried  out,  and  to 
reap  the  benefit  of,  the  pueblo  feature  of  its  colonization 
plan.  With  a  singular  lack  of  realization  of  the  time 
needed  to  make  citizens  out  of  savages,  it  had  set  ten 
years  as  the  period  at  the  expiration  of  which  the  Indian 
communities  attached  to  the  missions  were  to  be  formed 
into  pueblos,  —  the  missions  to  be  secularized,  that  is, 
turned  into  curacies,  the  pueblo  being  the  parish.  This 
was,  no  doubt,  the  wise  and  proper  ultimate  scheme, — the 
only  one,  in  fact,  which  provided  either  for  the  entire  civ- 
ilization of  the  Indian  or  the  successful  colonization  of 
the  country.  But  five  times  ten  years  would  have  been 
little  enough  to  allow  for  getting  such  a  scheme  fairly  un- 
der way,  and  another  five  times  ten  years  for  the  finishing 
and  rounding  of  the  work.  It  is  strange  how  sure  civil- 
ized peoples  are,  when  planning  and  legislating  for  sav- 
!iur'-s.  to  forget  that  it  has  always  taken  centuries  to  graft 
on  or  evolve  out  of  savagery  anything  like  civilization. 

Aiming  towards  this  completing  of  their  colonization 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS    WORK.  61 

plan,  the  Spanish  Government  had  very  early  founded  the 
pueblos  of  Los  Angeles  and  San  Jose.  A  second  class  of 
pueblos,  called,  in  the  legal  phrase  of  California's  later 
days.  ••  Presidial  Pueblos,"  had  originated  in  the  settle- 
ment of  the  presidios,  and  gradually  grown  up  around 
them.  There  were  four  of  these,  —  San  Diego,  Monterey, 
Santa  Barbara,  and  San  Francisco. 

It  is  easy  to  see  how,  as  these  settlements  increased,  of 
persons  more  or  less  unconnected  with  the  missions,  there 
must  have  grown  up  discontent  at  the  Church's  occupa- 
tion and  control  of  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  country. 
Ready  for  alliance  with  this  discontent  was  the  constant 
jealousy  on  the  part  of  the  military  authorities,  whose  meas- 
ures were  often  —  and,  no  doubt,  often  rightly  —  opposed 
by  the  friars.  These  fomenting  causes  of  disquiet  reacted 
on  the  impatience  and  greed  in  Spain  ;  all  together  slowly, 
steadily  working  against  the  missions,  until,  in  1813,  the 
Spanish  Cortes  passed  an  act  decreeing  their  seculariza- 
tion. This  was  set  forth  in  sounding  phrase  as  an  act 
purely  for  the  benefit  of  the  Indians,  that  they  might  be- 
come citizens  of  towns.  But  it  was,  to  say  the  least  of  it, 
as  much  for  Spain  as  for  the  Indians,  since,  by  its  provi- 
sions, one  half  of  the  mission  lands  were  to  be  sold  for  the 
payment  of  Spain's  national  debt.  This  act,  so  manifestly 
premature,  remained  a  dead  letter ;  but  it  alarmed  the 
friars,  and  with  reason.  It  was  the  tocsin  of  their  doom, 
of  the  downfall  of  their  establishments,  and  the  ruin  of 
their  work. 

Affairs  grew  more  and  more  unsettled.  Spanish  vice- 
roys and  Mexican  insurgents  took  turns  at  ruling  in  Mex- 
ico, and  the  representatives  of  each  took  turns  at  ruling  in 
California.  The  waves  of  every  Mexican  revolution  broke 
on  the  California  shore.  The  College  of  San  Fernando, 
in  Mexico,  also  shared  in  the  general  confusion,  and  man}' 
of  its  members  returned  to  Spain. 

From  1817  to  1820  great  requisitions  were  made  by  the 
Government  upon  the  missions.  They  responded  gener- 
ously. The}'  gave  not  only  food,  but  money.  They  sub- 
mitted to  a  tax,  per  capita,  on  all  their  thousands  of 
Indians,  to  pay  the  expenses  of  a  deputy  to  sit  in  the 
Mexican  Congress.  They  allowed  troops  to  be  quartered 
in  the  mission  buildings.  At  the  end  of  the  year  1820 


62  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

the  outstanding  drafts  on  the  Government,  in  favor  of  the 
missions,  amounted  to  four  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

It  is  impossible,  in  stud3"ing  the  records  of  this  time, 
not  to  feel  that  the  friars  were,  in  the  main,  disposed  to 
work  in  good  faith  for  the  best  interests  of  the  State. 
That  the}-  opposed  the  secularization  project  is  true ;  but 
it  is  unjust  to  assume  that  their  motives  in  so  doing  were 
purely  selfish.  Most  certainly,  the  results  of  the  carrying 
out  of  that  project  were  such  as  to  prove  all  that  they 
claimed  of  its  untimeliness.  It  is  easy  saying,  as  their 
enemies  do,  that  they  would  never  have  advocated  it,  and 
were  not  training  the  Indians  with  a  view  to  it :  but  the 
first  assertion  is  an  assumption,  and  nothing  more  ;  and 
the  refutation  of  the  second  lies  in  the  fact  that  even  in 
that  short  time  they  had  made  the  savages  into  "masons, 
carpenters,  plasterers,  soap-makers,  tanners,  shoe-makers, 
blacksmiths,  millers,  bakers,  cooks,  brick-makers,  carters 
and  cart-makers,  weavers  and  spinners,  saddlers,  ship 
hands,  agriculturists,  herdsmen,  vintagers;  —  in  a  word, 
they  filled  all  the  laborious  occupations  known  to  civilized 
society."  1  Moreover,  in  many  of  the  missions,  plots  of 
land  had  already  been  given  to  individual  neophytes  who 
seemed  to  have  intelligence  and  energy  enough  to  begin  an 
independent  life  for  themselves.  But  it  is  idle  speculating 
now  as  to  what  would  or  would  not  have  been  done  under 
conditions  which  never  existed. 

So  long  as  Spain  refused  to  recognize  Mexico's  inde- 
pendence, the  majority  of  the  friars,  as  was  natural,  re- 
mained loyal  to  the  Spanish  Government,  and  yielded  with 
reluctance  and  under  protest,  in  every  instance,  to  Mex- 
ico's control.  For  some  years  President  Sarria  was  under 
arrest  for  refusing  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the 
Mexican  republic.  Nevertheless,  it  not  being  convenient 
to  remove  him  and  fill  his  place,  he  performed  all  his  func- 
tions as  president  of  the  missions  through  that  time.  Many 
other  friars  refused  to  take  the  oath,  and  left  the  Country 
in  consequence.  During  three  years  the  secularization  pro- 
ject was  continually  agitated,  and  at  intervals  measures 
initiatory  to  it  were  decreed  and  sometimes  acted  upon. 

1  Special  Report  of  the  Hon.  B.  D.  Wilson,  of  Los  Angeles,  Cul., 
tqtl»e  Interior  department  in  1*52. 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS    WORK.  63 

The  shifting  governors  of  unfortunate  California  legis- 
lated for  or  against  the  mission  interests  according  to  the 
exigencies  of  their  needs  or  the  warmness  or  lukewarrnness 
of  their  religious  faith. 

An  act  of  one  year,  declaring  the  Indians  liberated,  and 
ordering  the  friars  to  turn  over  the  mission  properties  to 
administrators,  would  be  followed  a  few  years  later  by  an 
act  restoring  the  power  of  the  friars,  and  giving  back  to 
them  all  that  remained  to  be  rescued  of  the  mission  proper- 
ties and  converts.  All  was  anarchy  and  confusion.  During 
the  fifty-five  years  that  California  was  under  Spanish  rule 
she  had  but  nine  governors.  During  the  twenty-four  that 
she  was  under  Mexican  misrule  she  had  thirteen.  It 
would  be  interesting  to  know  what  the  Indian  populations 
thought,  as  they  watched  these  quarrelliugs  and  intrigues 
among  the  Christians  who  were  held  up  to  them  as  patterns 
for  imitation. 

In  a  curious  pamphlet  left  by  one  of  the  old  friars,  Father 
Boscana,  is  told  a  droll  story  of  the  logical  inferences  some 
of  them  drew  from  the  political  situations  among  their  sup- 
posed betters.  It  was  a  band  of  San  Diego  Indians.  "When 
they  heard  that  the  Spanish  viceroy  in  the  city  of  Mexico 
had  been  killed,  and  a  Mexican  made  emperor  in  his  place, 
the>'  forthwith  made  a  great  feast,  burned  up  their  chief, 
and  elected  a  new  one  in  his  stead.  To  the  stringent  re- 
proofs of  the  horrified  friars  the}-  made  answer:  "Have 
you  not  done  the  same  in  Mexico?  You  say  your  king 
was  not  good,  and  you  killed  him.  Well,  our  captain  was 
not  good,  and  we  burned  him.  If  the  new  one  turns  out 
bad,  we  will  burn  him  too,"  —  a  memorable  instance  of 
the  superiority  of  example  to  precept. 

At  last,  in  1834,  the  final  blow  fell  on  the  missions. 
The  Governor  of  California,  in  compliance  with  instruc- 
tions received  from  Mexico,  issued  an  authoritative  edict 
for  their  secularization.  It  was  a  long  document,  and  had 
many  significant  provisions  in  it.  It  said  that  the  Indians 
were  now  to  be  "•  emancipated."  But  the  16th  article  said 
that  they  "should  be  obliged  to  join  in  such  labors  of  com- 
munity as  are  indispensable,  in  the  opinion  of  the  political 
chief,  in  the  cultivation  of  the  vineyards,  gardens,  and 
fields,  which  for  the  present  remain  unapportioned."  This 
was  a  curious  sort  of  emancipation  ;  and  it  is  not  surprising 


04  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

to  read,  in  the  political  records  of  the  time,  such  para- 
graphs as  this:  "Out  of  one  hundred  and  sixty  Indian 
families  at  San  Diego,  to  whom  emancipation  was  offered 
by  Governor  Figueroa,  only  ten  could  be  induced  to  accept 
it."  The  friars  were  to  hand  over  all  records  and  invento- 
ries to  stewards  or  administrators  appointed.  Boards  of 
magistrates  were  also  appointed  for  each  village.  One 
half  of  the  movable  property  was  to  be  divided  among  the 
kl1  emancipated  persons,"  and  to  each  head  of  a  family  was 
to  be  given  four  hundred  square  yards  of  land.  Every- 
thing else  —  lands,  movable  properties,  property  of  all 
classes  —  was  to  be  put  into  the  hands  of  the  administra- 
tor, to  be  held  subject  to  the  Federal  Government.  Out 
of  these  properties  the  administrators  were  to  provide 
properly  for  the  support  of  the  father  or  fathers  left  in 
charge  of  the  church,  the  church  properties,  and  the  souls 
of  the  kk  emancipated  persons."  A  more  complete  and  in- 
genious subversion  of  the  previously  existing  state  of  things 
could  not  have  been  devised  ;  and  it  is  hard  to  conceive  how 
any  student  of  the  history  of  the  period  can  see,  in  its 
shaping  and  sudden  enforcing,  anything  except  bold  and 
unprincipled  greed  hiding  itself  under  specious  cloaks  of 
right.  ISaj'S  Dwinelle,  in  his  "  Colonial  History  :  "  — 

"  Beneath  these  specious  pretexts  was  undoubtedly  a  perfect 
understanding  between  the  Government  of  Mexico  and  the  lead- 
ing men  in  California,  that  in  such  a  condition  of  things  the 
Supreme  Government  might  absorb  the  Pious  Fund,  under  the 
pretence  that  it  was  no  longer  necessary  for  missionary  pur- 
poses, and  thus  had  reverted  to  the  State  as  a  quasi  escheat, 
while  the  co-actors  in  California  should  appropriate  the  local 
wealth  of  the  missions  by  the  rapid  and  sure  process  of  admin- 
istering their  temporalities." 

Of  the  manner  in  which  the  project  was  executed,  Dwi- 
nelle goes  on  to  say  :  — 

"  These  laws,  whose  ostensible  purpose  was  to  convert  the 
missionary  establishments  into  Indian  pueblos,  their  churches 
into  parish  churches,  and  to  elevate  the  Christianized  Indians  to 
tlu*  rank  of  citizens,  were  after  all  executed  in  such  a  manner 
that  the  so-called  secularization  of  the  missions  resulted  in  their 
plunder  and  complete  ruin,  and  in  the  demoralization  and  dis- 
persion of  the  Christianized  Indians." 


FATHER  JUMPERO  AND  HIS   WORK'.  65 

It  is  only  just  to  remember,  however,  that  these  laws 
and  measures  were  set  in  force  in  a  time  of  revolution, 
when  even  the  best  measures  and  laws  could  have  small 
chance  of  being  fairly  executed,  and  that  a  government 
which  is  driven,  as  Mexico  was,  to  recruiting  its  colonial 
forces  by  batches  of  selected  prison  convicts,  is  entitled  to 
pity,  if  not  charity,  in  our  estimates  of  its  conduct.  Of 
course,  the  position  of  administrator  of  a  mission  became 
at  once  a  political  reward  and  a  chance  for  big  gains, 
and  simply,  therefore,  a  source  and  centre  of  bribery  and 
corruption. 

Between  the  governors  —  who  now  regarded  the  mission 
establishments  as  State  property,  taking  their  cattle  or 
grain  as  freely  as  they  would  any  other  revenue,  and  send- 
ing orders  to  a  mission  for  tallow  as  they  would  draw 
checks  on  the  treasuiy  —  and  the  administrators,  who 
equally  regarded  them  as  eas}-  places  for  the  filling  of 
pockets,  the  wealth  of  the  missions  disappeared  as  dew 
melts  in  the  sun.  Through  all  this  the  Indians  were  the 
victims.  They  were,  under  the  administrators,  compelled 
to  work  far  harder  than  before ;  they  were  ill-fed  and  ill- 
treated  ;  they  were  hired  out  in  gangs  to  work  in  towns 
or  on  farms,  under  masters  who  regarded  them  simply  as 
beasts  of  burden ;  their  rights  to  the  plots  of  land  which 
had  been  set  off  for  them  were,  almost  without  exception, 
ignored.  A  more  pitiable  sight  has  not  often  been  seen 
on  earth  than  the  spectacle  of  this  great  body  of  helpless, 
dependent  creatures,  suddenly  deprived  of  their  teachers 
and  protectors,  thrown  on  their  own  resources,  and  at  the 
mere}-  of  rapacious  and  unscrupulous  communities,  in  time 
of  revolution.  The  best  comment  on  their  sufferings  is  to 
be  found  in  the  statistics  of  the  mission  establishments 
after  a  few  years  of  the  administrators'  reign. 

In  1834  there  were,  according  to  the  lowest  estimates, 
from  fifteen  to  twenty  thousand  Indians  in  the  missions. 
De  Mofras's  statistics  give  the  number  as  30,620.  In  1840 
there  were  left,  all  told,  but  six  thousand.  In  many  of 
the  missions  there  were  less  than  one  hundred.  According 
to  Ue  Mofras,  the  cattle,  sheep,  horses,  and  mules,  in 
18:54,  numbered  808,000  ;  in  1842,  but  6,320.  Other  esti- 
mates put  the  figures  for  1834  considerably  lower.  It 
is  ^not  easy  to  determine  which  are  true ;  but  the  most 


66  CALIFORNIA   AND  OREGON. 

moderate  estimates  of  all  tell  the  story  with  sufficient 
emphasis.  There  is  also  verbal  testimony  on  these  points 
still  to  be  heard  in  California,  if  one  has  patience  and 
interest  enough  in  the  subject  to  listen  to  it.  There  are 
still  living,  wandering  about,  half  blind,  half  starved,  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  mission  sites,  old  Indians  who 
recollect  the  mission  times  in  the  height  of  their  glory. 
Their  faces  kindle  with  a  sad  flicker  of  recollected  happi- 
ness, as  they  tell  of  the  days  when  they  had  all  they 
wanted  to  eat,  and  the  padres  were  so  good  and  kind : 
"  Bueno  tiempo !  Bueno  tiempo,"  they  say,  with  a  hope- 
less sigh  and  shake  of  the  head. 

Under  the  new  regime  the  friars  suffered  hardly  less 
than  the  Indians.  Some  fled  the  countiy,  unable  to  bear 
the  humiliations  and  hardships  of  their  positions  under 
the  control  of  the  administrators  or  majors-domo,  and 
dependent  on  their  caprice  for  shelter  and  even  for  food. 
Among  this  number  was  Father  Antonio  Peyri,  who  had 
been  for  over  thirty  years  in  charge  of  the  splendid  mission 
of  San  Luis  Rey.  In  1800,  two  years  after  its  founding, 
this  mission  had  369  Indians.  In  1827  it  had  2,686 ;  it 
owned  over  twenty  thousand  head  of  cattle,  and  nearly 
twenty  thousand  sheep.  It  controlled  over  two  hundred 
thousand  acres  of  land,  and  there  were  raised  in  its  fields 
in  one  year  three  thousand  bushels  of  wheat,  six  thousand 
of  barley,  and  ten  thousand  of  corn.  No  other  mission 
had  so  fine  a  church.  It  was  one  hundred  and  sixty  feet 
long,  fifty  wide,  and  sixty  high,  with  walls  four  feet 
thick.  A  tower  at  one  side  held  a  belfry  for  eight  bells. 
The  corridor  on  the  opposite  side  had  two  hundred  and 
fifty-six  arches.  Its  gold  and  silver  ornaments  are  said 
to  have  been  superb. 

When  Father  Peyri  made  up  his  mind  to  leave  the 
country,  he  slipped  off  by  night  to  San  Diego,  hoping  to 
escape  without  the  Indians'  knowledge.  But,  missing  him 
in  the  morning,  and  knowing  only  too  well  what  it  meant, 
five  hundred  of  them  mounted  their  ponies  in  hot  haste, 
and  galloped  all  the  way  to  San  Diego,  forty-five  miles,  to 
bring  him  back  by  force.  They  arrived  just  as  the  ship, 
with  Father  Peyri  on  board,  was  weighing  anchor.  Stand- 
ing on  the  deck,  with  outstretched  arms. he  blessed  them, 
«mid  their  tears  and  loud  cries.  Some  flung  themselves 


FATUER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS    WORK.  67 

into  tho  wntrr  and  swam  after  the  ship.  P'our  reached  it, 
and  dinging  to  its  sides,  so  implored  to  be  taken  that 
the  father  consented,  and  carried  them  with  him  to  Rome, 
where  one  of  them  became  a  priest. 

There  were  other  touching  instances  in  which  the  fathers 
refused  to  be  separated  from  their  Indian  converts,  and 
remained  till  the  last  by  their  side,  sharing  all  their  miseries 
and  deprivations.  De  Mofras,  in  his  visit  to  the  county 
in  1842,  found,  at  the  mission  of  San  Luis  Obispo,  Father 
Azagonais,  a  very  old  man,  living  in  a  hut,  like  the  In- 
dians, sleeping  on  a  rawhide  on  the  bare  ground,  with  no 
drinking- vessel  but  an  ox-horn,  and  no  food  but  some  dried 
meat  hanging  in  the  sun.  The  little  he  had  he  shared 
with  the  few  Indians  who  still  lingered  there.  Benevolent 
persons  had  offered  him  asylum ;  but  he  refused,  saying 
that  he  would  die  at  his  post.  At  the  San  Antonio  mission 
De  Mofras  found  another  aged  friar,  Father  Gutierrez, 
living  in  great  misery.  The  administrator  of  this  mission 
was  a  man  who  had  been  formerly  a  menial  servant  in  the 
establishment ;  he  had  refused  to  provide  Father  Gutierrez 
with  the  commonest  necessaries,  and  had  put  him  on  an 
allowance  of  food  barely  sufficient  to  keep  him  alive. 

At  Soledad  was  a  still  more  pitiful  case.  Father  Sarria, 
who  had  labored  there  for  thirty  years,  refused  to  leave  the 
spot,  even  after  the  mission  was  so  ruined  that  it  was  not 
worth  any  administrator's  while  to  keep  it.  He  and  the 
handful  of  Indians  who  remained  loyal  to  their  faith  and 
to  him  lived  on  there,  growing  poorer  and  poorer  each 
day ;  he  sharing  his  every  morsel  of  food  with  them,  and 
starving  himself,  till,  one  Sunda}-  morning,  sa3'ing  mass  at 
the  crumbling  altar,  he  fainted,  fell  forward,  and  died  in 
their  arms,  of  starvation.  This  was  in  1838.  Only  eight 
3'ears  before,  this  Soledad  mission  had  owned  thirty-six 
thousand  cattle,  seventy  thousand  sheep,  three  hundred 
yoke  of  working  oxen,  more  horses  than  any  other  mission, 
and  had  an  aqueduct,  fifteen  miles  long,  supplying  water 
enough  to  irrigate  twenty  thousand  acres  of  land. 

For  ten  years  after  the  passage  of  the  Secularization  Act, 
affairs  went  steadily  on  from  bad  to  worse  with  the  mis- 
sions. Each  governor  had  his  own  plans  and  devices  for 
making  the  most  out  of  them,  renting  them,  dividing  them 
into  parcels  for  the  use  of  colonists,  establishing  pueblos 


G8  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

on  them,  making  them  subject  to  laws  of  bankruptcy,  and 
finally  selling  them.  The  departmental  assemblies  some- 
times indorsed  and  sometimes  annulled  the  acts  of  the 
o-overnors.  In  1842  Governor  Micheltorena  proclaimed 
that  the  twelve  southern  missions  should  be  restored  to 
the  Church,  and  that  the  Government  would  not  make 
another  grant  of  land  without  the  consent  of  the  friars. 
This  led  to  a  revolution,  or  rather  an  ebullition,  and 
Micheltorena  was  sent  out  of  the  country.  To  him  suc- 
ceeded Pio  Pico,  who  remained  in  power  till  the  occu- 
pation of  California  by  the  United  States  forces  in  1846. 
During  the  reign  of  Pio  Pico,  the  ruin  of  the  mission 
establishments  was  completed.  They  were  at  first  sold  or 
rented  in  batches  to  the  highest  bidders.  There  was  first 
a  preliminary  farce  of  proclamation  to  the  Indians  to  return 
and  take  possession  of  the  missions  if  they  did  not  want 
them  sold.  These  proclamations  were  posted  up  in  the 
pueblos  for  months  before  the  sales.  In  1844  the  Indians 
of  Dolores,  Soledad,  San  Miguel,  La  Purissima,  and  San 
Rafael1  were  thus  summoned  to  come  back  to  their  mis- 
sions,—  a  curious  bit  of  half  conscience -stricken,  half 
politic  recognition  of  the  Indians'  ownership  of  the  lands, 
the  act  of  the  Departmental  Assembly  saying  that  if  they 
(the  Indians)  did  not  return  before  such  a  date,  the  Gov- 
ernment would  declare  said  missions  to  be  "without  own- 
ers," and  dispose  of  them  accordingl}-.  There  must  have 
been  much  bitter  speech  in  those  days  when  news  of  these 
proclamations  reached  the  wilds  where  the  mission  Indians 
had  taken  refuge. 

At  last,  in  March,  1846,  an  act  of  the  Departmental 
Assembly  made  the  missions  liable  to  the  laws  of  bank- 
ruptcy, and  authorized  the  governor  to  sell  them  to  private 
persons.  As  by  this  time  all  the  missions  that  had  any 
pretence  of  existence  left  had  been  run  hopelessly  into 
/debt,  proceedings  in  regard  to  them  were  much  simplified 
by  this  act.  In  the  same  year  the  President  of  Mexico 
issued  an  order  to  Governor  Pico  to  use  all  means  within 
his  power  to  raise  money  to  defend  the  country  against 
the  United  States  ;  and  under  color  of  this  double  author- 

1  The  missions  of  San  Rafael  and  San  Francisco  de  Solano  were 
the  last  founded  ;  the  first  in  1819,  and  the  latter  in  1823,  —  too  late  to 
attain  any  great  success  or  importance. 


/'.I  TUKli  JUXIPERO   AND  HIS    WORK.  69 

ization  the  governor  forthwith  proceeded  to  sell  missions 
right  and  left.  He  sold  them  at  illegal  private  sales  ;  he 
sold  them  for  insignificant  sums,  and  for  sums  not  paid  at 
all ;  whether  he  was,  to  use  the  words  of  a  well-known 
legal  brief  in  one  of  the  celebrated  California  land  cases, 
"  wilfully  ignorant  or  grossly  corrupt,"  there  is  no  knowing, 
and  it  made  no  difference  in  the  result. 

One  of  the  last  acts  of  the  Departmental  Assembly,  before 
the  surrender  of  the  country,  was  to  declare  all  Governor 
Pico's  sales  of  mission  property  null  and  void.  And  one 
of  Governor  Pico's  last  acts  was,  as  soon  as  he  had  made 
up  his  mind  to  run  away  out  of  the  country,  to  write  to 
some  of  his  special  friends  and  ask  them  if  there  were  any- 
thing else  the}-  would  like  to  have  him  give  them  before 
his  departure. 

On  the  7th  of  Juty,  1846,  the  American  flag  was  raised 
in  Monterey,  and  formal  possession  of  California  was  taken 
by  the  United  States.  The  proclamation  of  Admiral  Sloat 
on  this  memorable  occasion  included  these  words :  "  All 
persons  holding  title  to  real  estate,  or  in  quiet  possession 
of  lands  under  color  of  right,  shall  have  those  titles  and 
rights  guaranteed  to  them."  "Color  of  right"  is  a  legal 
phrase,  embodying  a  moral  idea,  an  obligation  of  equity. 
If  the  United  States  Government  had  kept  this  guarantee, 
there  would  be  living  in  comfortable  homesteads  in  Cali- 
fornia to-day  many  hundreds  of  people  that  are  now 
homeless  and  beggared,  —  Mexicans  as  well  as  Indians. 

The  army  officers  in  charge  of  different  posts  in  Califor- 
nia, in  these  first  days  of  the  United  States'  occupation  of 
the  country,  were  perplexed  and  embarrassed  by  nothing 
so  much  as  by  the  confusion  existing  in  regard  to  the 
mission  properties  and  lands.  Even^where  men  turned  up 
with  bills  of  sale  from  Governor  Pico.  At  the  San  Diego 
mission  the  ostensible  owner,  one  Estudillo  by  name, 
confessed  frankly  that  he  "  did  not  think  it  right  to  dispose 
of  the  Indians'  property  in  that  way ;  but  as  everybody 
was  bu_ying  missions,  he  thought  he  might  as  well  have 
one." 

In  many  of  the  missions,  squatters,  without  show  or 
semblance  of  title,  were  found  ;  these  the  officers  turned 
out.  Finally,  General  Kearney,  to  save  the  trouble  of 
cutting  any  more  Gordian  knots,  declared  that  all  titles 


70  CALIFORNIA   AND  OREGON. 

of  missions  and  mission  lands  must  be  held  in  abeyance 
till  the  United  States  Government  should  pronounce  on 
thorn. 

For  several  years  the  question  remained  unsettled,  and 
the  mission  properties  were  held  b}"  those  who  had  them 
in  possession  at  the  time  of  the  surrender.  But  in  1856 
the  United  States  Land  Commission  gave,  in  reply  to  a  claim 
and  petition  from  the  Catholic  Bishop  of  California,  a  de- 
cision which,  considered  with  reference  to  the  situation  of 
the  mission  properties  at  the  time  of  the  United  States' 
possession,  was  perhaps  as  near  to  being  equitable  as  the 
circumstances  would  admit.  But,  considered  with  refer- 
ence to  the  status  of  the  mission  establishments  under  the 
Spanish  rule,  to  their  original  extent,  the  scope  of  the 
work,  and  the  magnificent  success  of  their  experiment  up 
to  the  time  of  the  revolutions,  it  seems  a  sadly  inadequate 
return  of  property  once  rightfully  held.  Still,  it  was  not 
the  province  of  the  United  States  to  repair  the  injustices 
or  make  good  the  thefts  of  Spain  and  Mexico ;  and  an}r 
attempt  to  clear  up  the  tangle  of  confiscations,  debts, 
frauds,  and  robberies  in  California,  for  the  last  quarter  of 
a  century  before  the  surrender,  would  have  been  bootless 
work. 

The  Land  Commissioner's  decision  was  based  on  the 
old  Spanish  law  which  divided  church  property  into  two 
classes,  sacred  and  ecclesiastical,  and  held  it  to  be  inalien- 
able, except  in  case  of  necessity,  and  then  only  according 
to  provisions  of  canon  law;  in  the  legal  term,  it  was  said 
to  be  "out  of  commerce."  The  sacred  property  was  that 
which  had  been  in  a  formal  manner  consecrated  to  God,  — 
church  buildings,  sacred  vessels,  vestments,  etc.  Ecclesi- 
astical property  was  land  held  by  the  Church,  and  appropri- 
ated to  the  maintenance  of  divine  worship,  or  the  support  of 
the  ministry  ;  buildings  occupied  by  the  priests,  or  necessary 
for  their  convenience  ;  gardens,  etc.  Following  a  similar 
division,  the  property  of  the  mission  establishments  was 
held  by  the  Land  Commission  to  be  of  two  sorts,  —  mission 
property  and  church  property :  the  mission  property,  em- 
bracing the  great  tracts  of  land  formerly  cultivated  for  the 
community's  purpose,  it  was  decided,  must  be  considered 
as  government  property;  the  church  propert}',  including, 
with  the  church  buildings,  houses  of  priests,  etc".,  such 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS    WORK.  71 

smaller  portions  of  land  as  were  devoted  to  the  immediate 
needs  of  the  ministry,  it  was  decided  must  still  rightfully 
go  to  the  Church.  How  many  acres  of  the  old  gardens, 
orchards,  vineyards,  of  the  missions  could  properly  be 
claimed  by  the"  Church  under  this  head,  was  of  course  a 
question  ;  and  it  seems  to  have  been  decided  on  very  differ- 
ent bases  in  different  missions,  as  some  received  much 
more  than  others.  But  all  the  church  buildings,  priests' 
houses,  and  some  acres  of  land,  more  or  less,  with  each, 
were  pronounced  by  this  decision  to  have  been  "before 
the  treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo  solemnly  dedicated  to 
the  use  of  the  Church,  and  therefore  withdrawn  from  com- 
merce ; "  "•  such  an  interest  is  protected  by  the  provisions 
of  the  treaty,  and  must  be  held  inviolate  under  our  laws." 
Thus  were  returned  at  last,  into  the  inalienable  possession 
of  the  Catholic  Church,  all  that  were  left  of  the  old  mis- 
sion churches,  and  some  fragments  of  the  mission  lands. 
Many  of  them  are  still  in  operation  as  curacies ;  others 
are  in  ruins ;  of  some  not  a  trace  is  left,  —  not  even  a 
stone. 

At  San  Diego  the  walls  of  the  old  church  are  still  stand- 
ing, unroofed,  and  crumbling  daily.  It  was  used  as  a 
cavalry  barracks  during  the  war  of  1846,  and  has  been  a 
sheepfold  since.  Opposite  it  is  an  olive  orchard,  of  superb 
hoary  trees  still  in  bearing ;  a  cactus  wall  twenty  feet 
high,  and  a  cluster  of  date  palms,  are  all  that  remain  of 
the  friars'  garden. 

At  San  Juan  Capistrano,  the  next  mission  to  the  north, 
some  parts  of  the  buildings  are  still  habitable.  Service  is 
held  regularly  in  one  of  the  small  chapels.  The  priest 
lives  there,  and  ekes  out  his  little  income  b}~  renting  some 
of  the  mouldering  rooms.  The  church  is  a  splendid  ruin. 
It  was  of  stone,  a  hundred  'and  fifty  feet  long  b}-  a  hundred 
in  width,  with  walls  five  feet  thick,  a  dome  eight}'  feet 
high,  and  a  fine  belfry  of  arches  in  which  four  bells  rang. 
It  was  thrown  down  by  an  earthquake  in  1812,  on  the  day 
of  the  Feast  of  the  Immaculate  Conception.  Morning  mass 
was  going  on,  and  the  church  was  thronged  ;  thirty  persons 
were  killed,  and  man}*  more  injured. 

The  little  hamlet  of  San  Juan  Capistrano  lies  in  harbor, 
as  it  were,  looking  out  on  its  glimpse  of  sea,  between  two 
Ipw  spurs  of  broken  and  rolling  hills,  which  in  June  are 


7i>  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

covered  with  shining  yellow  and  blue  and  green,  iridescent 
as  :i  peacock's  neck.  It  is  worth  going  across  the  con- 
tinent to  come  into  the  village  at  sunset  of  a  June  da}'. 
The  peace,  silence,  and  beauty  of  the  spot  are  brooded 
over  and  dominated  by  the  grand  gray  ruin,  lifting  the 
whole  scene  into  an  ineffable  harmony.  Wandering  in 
room  after  room,  court  after  court,  through  corridors  with 
red-tiled  roofs  and  hundreds  of  broad  Roman  arches,  over 
fallen  pillars,  and  through  carved  doorways,  whose  un- 
trodden thresholds  have  sunk  out  of  sight  in  summer 
grasses,  one  asks  himself  if  he  be  indeed  in  America.  On 
the  interior  walls  are  still  to  be  seen  spaces  of  brilliant 
fresco- work,  in  Byzantine  patterns  of  superb  red,  pale 
green,  gray  and  blue ;  and  the  corridors  are  paved  with 
tiles,  large  and  square.  It  was  our  good  fortune  to  have 
with  us,  in  San  Juan  Capistrano,  a  white-haired  Mexican, 
who  in  his  boyhood  had  spent  a  3'ear  in  the  mission.  He 
remembered  as  if  it  were  yesterday  its  bustling  life  of  fifty 
years  ago,  when  the  arched  corridor  ran  unbroken  around 
the  great  courtyard,  three  hundred  feet  square,  and  was 
often  filled  with  Indians,  friars,  officers,  and  gay  Mexican 
ladies  looking  on  at  a  bull- fight  in  the  centre.  He  remem- 
bered the  splendid  library,  filled  from  ceiling  to  floor  with 
books,  extending  one  whole  side  of  the  square  :  in  a  corner, 
where  had  been  the  room  in  which  he  used  to  see  sixty 
Indian  women  weaving  at  looms,  we  stood  ankle-deep  in 
furzy  weeds  and  grass.  He  showed  us  the  doorway,  now 
closed  up,  which  led  into  the  friars'  parlor.  To  this  door, 
every  Sunday,  after  mass,  came  the  Indians,  in  long  proces- 
sions, to  get  their  weekly  gifts.  Each  one  received  some- 
thing,—  a  handkerchief,  dress,  trinket,  or  money.  While 
their  gifts  were  being  distributed,  a  band  of  ten  or  twelve 
performers,  all  Indians,  pla}-ed  lively  airs  on  brass  and 
stringed  instruments.  In  a  little  baptistery,  dusky  with 
cobweb  and  mould,  we,  found  huddled  a  group  of  wooden 
statues  of  saints,  which  once  stood  in  niches  in  the  church  ; 
on  their  heads  were  faded  and  brittle  wreaths,  left  from 
the  last  occasion  on  which  they  had  done  duty.  One  had 
lost  an  eye  ;  another  a  hand.  The  gilding  and  covering  of 
their  robes  were  dimmed  and  defaced.  But  they  had  a 
dignity  which  nothing  could  destroy.  The  contours  were 
singularly  expressive"  and  fine,  and  the  rendering  of  the 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS   WORK.  73 

drapery  was  indeed  wonderful,  —  flowing  robes  and  gath- 
ered and  lifted  mantles,  all  carved  in  solid  wood. 

There  are  statues  of  this  sort  to  be  seen  in  several  of 
the  old  mission  churches.  They  were  all  carved  bv  the 
Indians,  many  of  whom  showed  great  talent  in  that  direc»- 
tion.  There  is  also  in  the  office  of  the  justice — or  alcalde, 
as  he  is  still  called  —  of  San  Juan  Capistrano,  "a  carved 
chair  of  noticeably  bold  and  graceful  design  made  by  In- 
dian workmen.  A  few  tatters  of  heavy  crimson  brocade 
hang  on  it  still,  relics  of  the  time  when  it  formed  part  of 
a  gorgeous  paraphernalia  and  service. 

Even  finer  than  the  ruins  of  San  Juan  Capistrano  are 
those  of  the  church  at  San  Luis  Rey.  It  has  a  perfectly 
proportioned  dome  over  the  chancel,  and  beautiful  groined 
arches  on  either  hand  and  over  the  altar.  Four  broad 
pilasters  on  each  side  of  the  church  are  frescoed  in  a  curi- 
ous mixing  of  blues,  light  and  dark,  with  reds  and  black, 
which  have  faded  and  blended  into  a  delicious  tone.  A 
Byzantine  pulpit  hanging  high  on  the  wall,  and  three  old 
wooden  statues  in  niches,  are  the  only  decorations  left. 
Piles  of  dirt  and  rubbish  fill  the  space  in  front  of  the  altar, 
and  grass  and  weeds  are  growing  in  the  corners ;  great 
flocks  of  wild  doves  live  in  the  roof,  and  have  made  the 
whole  place  unclean  and  foul-aired.  An  old  Mexican, 
eight}'  years  old,  a  former  servant  of  the  mission,  has  the 
ruin  in  charge,  and  keeps  the  doors  locked  still,  as  if  there 
were  treasure  to  guard.  The  old  man  is  called  "  alcalde  " 
by  the  village  people,  and  seems  pleased  to  be  so  ad- 
dressed. His  face  is  like  wrinkled  parchment,  and  he 
walks  bent  into  a  parenthesis,  but  his  eyes  are  bright  and 
young.  As  he  totters  along,  literally  holding  his  rags  to- 
gether, discoursing  warmly  of  the  splendors  he  recollects, 
he  seems  indeed  a  ghost  from  the  old  times. 

The  most  desolate  ruin  of  all  is  that  of  the  La  Purissima 
Mission.  It  is  in  the  Lompoc  valley,  two  davs'  easy  jour- 
ney north  of  Santa  Barbara.  Nothing  is  left  there  but 
one  long,  low  adobe  building,  with  a  few  arches  of  the  cor- 
ridor ;  the  doors  stand  open,  the  roof  is  falling  in  :  it  has 
been  so  often  used  as  a  stable  and  sheepfold,  that  even  the 
grasses  are  killed  around  it.  The  painted  pulpit  hangs  half 
falling  on  the  wall,  its  stairs  are  gone,  and  its  sounding- 
board  is  slanting  awry.  Inside  the  broken  altar-rail  is 


74  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

a  pile  of  stones,  earth,  and  rubbish,  thrown  up  by  seekers 
after  buried  treasures  ;  in  the  farther  corner  another  pile 
and  hole,  the  home  of  a  badger ;  mud-swallows'  nests  are 
thick  on  the  cornice,  and  cobwebbed  rags  of  the  old  can- 
vas ceiling  bang  fluttering  overhead.  The  only  trace  of 
the  ancient  cultivation  is  a  pear-orchard  a  few  rods  off, 
which  must  have  been  a  splendid  sight  in  its  day  ;  it  is  at 
least  two  hundred  yards  square,  with  a  double  row  of  trees 
all  around,  so  placed  as  to  leave  between  them  a  walk  fifty 
or  sixty  feet  wide.  Bits  of  broken  aqueduct  here  and  there, 
and  a  large,  round  stone  tank  overgrown  by  grass,  showed 
where  the  life  of  the  orchard  used  to  flow  in ,  it  has  been 
many  years  slowly  dying  of  thirst.  Many  of  the  trees  are 
gone,  and  those  that  remain  stretch  out  gaunt  and  shriv- 
elled boughs,  which,  though  still  bearing  fruit,  look  like 
arms  tossing  in  vain  reproach  and  entreaty ;  a  few  pinched 
little  blossoms  seemed  to  heighten  rather  than  lessen  their 
melancholy  look. 

At  San  Juan  Bautista  there  lingers  more  of  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  olden  time  than  is  to  be  found  in  any  other 
place  in  California.  The  mission  church  is  well  preserved  ; 
its  grounds  are  enclosed  and  cared  for ;  in  its  garden  are 
still  blooming  roses  and  vines,  in  the  shelter  of  palms,  and 
with  the  old  stone  sun-dial  to  tell  time.  In  the  sacristy 
are  oak  chests,  full  of  gorgeous  vestments  of  brocades, 
with  silver  and  gold  laces.  On  one  of  these  robes  is  an 
interesting  relic.  A  lost  or  worn-out  silken  tassel  had 
been  replaced  by  the  patient  Indian  workers  with  one  of 
fine-shredded  rawhide  ;  the  shreds  wound  with  silver  wire, 
and  twisted  into  tiny  rosettes  and  loops,  closely  imitating 
the  silver  device.  The  church  fronts  south,  on  a  little 
green-locust  walled  plaza,  —  the  sleepiest,  sunniest,  dream- 
iest place  in  the  world.  To  the  east  the  land  falls  off  ab- 
ruptly, so  that  the  paling  on  that  side  of  the  plaza  is 
outlined  against  the  sky.  and  its  little  locked  gate  looks  as 
if  it  would  open  into  the  heavens.  The  mission  buildings 
used  to  surround  this  plaza ;  after  the  friars'  day  came 
rich  men  living  there ;  and  a  charming  inn  is  kept  now  in 
one  of  their  old  adobe  houses.  On  the  east  side  of  the 
church  is  a  succession  of  three  terraces  leading  down  to  a 
valley.  On  the  upper  one  is  the  old  graveyard,  in  which 
it  is  said  there  are  sleeping  four  thousand  Indians. 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS    WORK.  75 

In  182")  there  wore  spoken  at  this  mission  thirteen  dif- 
ferent Indian  dialects. 

Just  behind  the  church  is  an  orphan  girls'  school,  kept 
b}-  the  Sisters  of  the  Sacred  Heart.  At  six  o'clock  every 
morning  the  bells  of  the  church  ring  for  mass  as  the}-  used 
to  rinu:  when  over  a  thousand  Indians  flocked  at  the  sum- 
mons. To-day,  at  the  sound,  there  comes  a  procession  of 
little  girls  and  young  maidens,  the  black-robed  sisters  walk- 
ing before  them  with  crossed  hands  and  placid  faces.  One 
or  two  Mexican  women,  with  shawls  over  their  heads, 
steal  across  the  faint  paths  of  the  plaza,  and  enter^  the 
church. 

1  shall  always  recollect  the  morning  when  I  went,  too. 
The  silence  of  the  plaza  was  in  itself  a  memorial  service, 
with  locust  blossoms  swinging  incense.  It  was  barely 
dawn  in  the  church.  As  the  shrill  yet  sweet  childish 
voices  lifted  up  the  strains  of  the  Kyrie  Eleison,  I  seemed 
to  see  the  face  of  Father  Junipero  in  the  dim  lighted  chan- 
cel, and  the  benediction  was  as  solemn  as  if  he  himself 
had  spoken  it.  Why  the  little  town  of  San  Juan  Bautista 
continues  to  exist  is  a  marvel.  It  is  shut  out  and  cut  oft 
from  everything ;  only  two  or  three  hundred  souls  are  left 
in  it ;  its  streets  are  grass-grown  ;  half  its  houses  are  empty. 
But  it  has  a  charm  of  sun,  valle}',  hill,  and  seaward  off-look 
unsurpassed  in  all  California.  Lingering  out  a  peaceful 
century  there  are  many  old  men  and  women,  whose  memo- 
ries are  like  magic  glasses,  reproducing  the  pictures  of  the 
past.  One  such  we  found  :  a  Mexican  woman  eighty-five 
years  old,  portly,  jolty,  keen-tongued,  keen-eyed  ;  the  widow 
of  one  of  the  soldiers  of  the  old  mission  guard.  She  had 
had  twelve  children  ;  she  had  never  been  ill  a  week  in  her 
life ;  she  is  now  the  village  nurse,  and  almost  doctor. 
Sixty  years  back  she  remembered.  "  The  Indians  used  to 
be  in  San  Juan  Bautista  like  sheep,"  she  said,  "by  the 
thousand  and  thousand."  They  were  always  good,  and 
the  padres  were  always  kind.  Fifty  oxen  were  killed  for 
jfood  every  eight  days,  and  everybody  had  all  he  wanted  to 
eat.  There  was  much  more  water  then  than  now,  plenty 
of  rain,  and  the  streams  always  full.  "I  don't  know 
whether  you  or  we  were  bad,  that  it  has  been  taken  away 
by  (lod."  she  said,  with  a  quick  glance,  half  humorous, 
half  antagonistic. 


76  'CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

The  Santa  Barbara  Mission  is  still  in  the  charge  of 
Franciscans,  the  only  one  remaining  in  their  possession. 
•  It  is  now  called  a  college  for  apostolic  missionary  work, 
and  there  are  living  within  its  walls  eight  members  of  the 
onlcr.  One  of  them  is  very  old,  —  a  friar  of  the  ancient 
regime  ;  his  benevolent  face  is  well  known  throughout  the 
country,  and  there  are  in  many  a  town  and  remote  hamlet 
men  and  women  who  wait  always  for  his  coming  before 
they  will  make  confession.  He  is  like  St.  Francis's  first 
followers  :  the  obligations  of  poverty  and  charit}-  still  hold 
to  hnn  the  literal  fulness  of  the  original  bond.  He  gives 
away  garment  after  garment,  leaving  himself  without  pro- 
tection against  cold  ;  and  the  brothers  are  forced  to  lock  up 
and  hide  from  him  all  provisions,  or  he  would  leave  the 
house  bare  of  food.  He  often  kneels  from  midnight  to 
dawn  on  the  stone  floor  of  the  church,  praying  and  chant- 
ing psalms  ;  and  when  a  terrible  epidemic  of  small-pox 
broke  out  some  j'ears  ago,  he  labored  day  and  night,  nurs- 
ing the  worst  victims  of  it.  shriving  them,  and  burying 
them  with  his  own  hands.  He  is  past  eighty,  and  has  not 
much  longer  to  stay.  He  has  outlived  many  things  beside 
his  own  prime :  the  day  of  the  sort  of  faith  and  work  to 
which  his  spirit  is  attuned  has  passed  by  forever. 

The  mission  buildings  stand  on  high  ground,  three  miles 
from  the  beach,  west  of  the  town  and  above  it,  looking  to 
the  sea.  In  the  morning  the  sun's  first  rays  flash  full  on 
its  front,  and  at  evening  they  linger  late  on  its  western 
wall.  It  is  an  inalienable  benediction  to  the  place.  The 
longer  one  stays  there  the  more  he  is  aware  of  the  influ- 
ence on  his  soul,  as  well  as  of  the  importance  in  the  land- 
scape of  the  benign  and  stately  edifice. 

On  the  corridor  of  the  inner  court  hangs  a  bell  which  is 
rung  for  the  hours  of  the  daily  offices  and  secular  duties. 
It  is  also  struck  whenever  a  friar  dies,  to  announce  that  all 
is  over.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  brother  who  has  watched  the  . 
lust  lnvath  of  the  dying  one  to  go  immediately  and  strike? 
this  bell.  Its  sad  note  has  echoed  many  times  through 
the  corridors.  One  of  the  brothers  said,  last  year,  — 

"  The  first  time  I  rang  that  bell  to  announce  a  death, 
tin-re  \\ere  fifteen  of  us  left.  Now  there  are  only  eight." 

The  sentence  itself  fell  on  my  ear  like  the  note  of  a 
passing-bell.  It  seems  a  not  unfitting  last  word  to  this 


FATHER  JUNIPERO  AND  HIS   WORK.  77 

slight  and  fragmentarj"  sketch  of  the  labors  of  the  Fran- 
ciscan Order  in  California. 

Still  more  fitting,  however,  are  the  words  of  a  historian, 
who,  living  in  California  and  thoroughly  knowing  its  his- 
tory from  first  to  last,  has  borne  the  following  eloquent 
testimony  to  the  friars  and  their  work :  — 

' '  The  results  of  the  mission  scheme  of  Christianization  and 
colonization  were  such  as  to  justify  the  plans  of  the  wise  states- 
man who  devised  it,  and  to  gladden  the  hearts  of  the  pious  men 
who  devoted  their  lives  to  its  execution. 

"  At  the  end  of  sixty  years  the  missionaries  of  Upper  Califor- 
nia found  themselves  in  the  possession  of  twenty-one  prosperous 
missions,  planted  on  a  line  of  about  seven  hundred  miles,  run- 
ning from  San  Diego  north  to  the  latitude  of  Sonoma.  More 
than  thirty  thousand  Indian  converts  were  lodged  in  the  mission 
buildings,  receiving  religious  culture,  assisting  at  divine  wor- 
ship, and  cheerfully  performing  their  easy  tasks.  ...  If  we  ask 
where  are  now  the  thirty  thousand  Christianized  Indians  who 
once  enjoyed  the  beneficence  and  created  the  wealth  of  the 
twenty-one  Catholic  missions  of  California,  and  then  contem- 
plate the  most  wretched  of  all  want  of  systems  which  has  sur- 
rounded them  under  our  own  government,  we  shall  not  withhold 
our  admiration  from  those  good  and  devoted  men  who,  with 
such  wisdom,  sagacity,  and  self-sacrifice,  reared  these  wonderful 
institutions  in  the  wilderness  of  California.  They  at  least 
would  have  preserved  these  Indian  races  if  they  had  been  left 
to  pursue  unmolested  their  work  of  pious  beneficence."  l 

i  John  W.  Dwinelle's  Colonial  History  of  San  Francisco,  pp.  44-87. 


NOTE.  —  The  author  desires  to  express  her  acknowledgments  to 
H.  H.  Bancroft,  of  San  Francisco,  who  kindly  put  at  her  disposal  all 
the  resources  of  his  invaluable  library ;  also  to  the  Superior  of  the 
Franciscan  College  in  Santa  Barbara,  for  the  loan  of  important  books 
and  manuscripts  and  the  photograph  of  Father  Junipero. 


THE  PRESENT   CONDITION   OF  THE  MISSION 
INDIANS  IN  SOUTHERN  CALIFORNIA. 

THE  old  laws  of  the  kingdom  of  the  Indies  are  interest- 
ing reading,  especially  those  portions  of  them  relating  to 
Indians.  A  certain  fine  and  chivalrous  quality  of  honor 
toward  the  helpless  and  tenderness  toward  the  dependent 
runs  all  through  their  quaint  and  cumbrous  paragraphs. 

It  is  not  until  one  studies  these  laws  in  connection 
with  the  history  of  the  confusions  and  revolutions  of  the 
secularization  period,  and  of  the  American  conquest 
of  California,  that  it  becomes  possible  to  understand 
how  the  California  Mission  Indians  could  have  been  left 
so  absolutely  unprotected,  as  they  were,  in  the  matter 
of  ownership  of  the  lands  they  had  cultivated  for  sixty 
years. 

"AVe  command,"  said  the  Spanish  king,  "that  the  sale, 
grant,  and  composition  of  lands  be  executed  with  such  at- 
tention that  the  Indians  be  left  in  possession  of  the  full 
amount  of  lands  belonging  to  them,  either  singly  or  in 
communities,  together  with  their  rivers  and  waters ;  and 
the  lands  which  they  shall  have  drained  or  otherwise  im- 
proved, whereby  they  ma}-  by  their  own  industry  have  ren- 
dered them  fertile,  are  reserved,  in  the  first  place,  and  can 
in  no  case  be  sold  or.  aliened.  And  the  judges  who  have 
been  sent  thither  shall  specify  what  Indians  they  may  have 
found  on  the  land,  and  what  lands  they  shall  have  left  in  pos- 
session of  each  of  the  elders  of  tribes,  caciques,  governors, 
or  communities." 

(1  razing  estates  for  cattle  are  ordered  to  be  located 
"  apart  from  the  fields  and  villages  of  the  Indians."  The 
king's  command  is  that  no  such  estates  shall -be  granted 
"in  any  parts  or  place  where  any  damage  can  accrue  to 


MISSION  INDIANS  IN  CALIFORNIA.  79 


the  Indianttede  «  with- 
out  prejudice  fcOSi&ifl&HllfBg  -*t»dCAflJch  as  may  have 
been  granted  to  their  prejudice  and  injury  "  must  be 
"  restored  to  whomever  they  by  right  shall  belong." 

"  In  order  to  avoid  the  inconveniences  and  damages  re- 
sulting from  the  sale  or  gift  to  Spaniards  of  tracts  of  land 
to  the  prejudice  of  Indians,  upon  the  suspicious  testimony 
of  witnesses,"  the  king  orders  that  all  sales  and  gifts  are 
to  be  made  before  the  attorneys  of  the  roj'al  audiencias, 
and  "  always  with  an  eye  to  the  benefit  of  the  Indians  ;  " 
and  "the  king's  solicitors  are  to  be  protectors  of  the 
Indians  and  plead  for  them."  "  After  distributing  to  the 
Indians  what  they  may  justly  want  to  cultivate,  sow,  and 
raise  cattle,  confirming  to  them  what  they  now  hold,  and 
granting  what  they  may  want  besides,  all  the  remaining 
laud  may  be  reserved  to  us,"  says  the  old  decree,  "  clear 
of  any  incumbrance,  for  the  purpose  of  being  given  as 
rewards,  or  disposed  of  according  to  our  pleasure." 

In  those  days  everything  in  New  Spain  was  thus  ordered 
In*  royal  decrees.  Nobody  had  grants  of  land  in  the  sense 
in  which  we  use  the  word.  When  the  friars  wished  to  re- 
ward an  industrious  and  capable  Indian,  and  test  his  ca- 
pacity to  take  care  of  himself  and  famity,  by  giving  him 
a  little  farm  of  his  own,  all  they  had  to  do,  or  did,  was  to 
mark  off  the  portion  of  land,  put  the  Indian  on  it  and  tell 
him  it  was  his.  There  would  appear  to  have  been  little 
more  formality  than  this  in  the  establishing  of  the  Indian 
pueblos  which  were  formed  in  the  beginning  of  the  secu- 
larization period.  Governor  Figueroa,  in  an  address  in 
1834,  speaks  of  three  of  these,  San  Juan  Capistrano,  San 
Dieguito,  and  Las  Flores,  says  that  they  are  flourishing, 
and  that  the  comparison  between  the  condition  of  these 
Indians  and  that  of  the  Spanish  townsmen  in  the  same 
region  is  altogether  in  favor  of  the  Indians. 

On  Nov.  1C,  1835,  eighty-one  "•  desafiliados  "  —  as  the 
ex-neophytes  of  missions  were"  called  —  of  the  San  Luis 
Roy  Mission  settled  themselves  in  the  San  Pasqual  valley, 
which  was  an  appanage  of  that  mission.  These  Indian 
communities  appear  to  have  had  no  documents  to  show 
their  right,  either  as  communities  or  individuals,  to  the 
land  on  which  they  had  settled.  At  any  rate,  they  had 
nothing  which  amounted  to  a  protection,  or  stood  in  the 


80  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

way  of  settlers  who  coveted  their  lands.  It  is  years  since 
the  last  trace  of  the  pueblos  Las  Flores  and  San  Dieguito 
disappeared  ;  and  the  San  Pasqual  valley  is  entirely  taken 
up  by  white  settlers,  chiefly  on  pre-emption  claims.  San 
Juan  Capistrano  is  the  only  one  of  the  four  where  are  to 
be  found  any  Indians'  homes.  If  those  who  had  banded 
themselves  together  and  had  been  set  off  into  pueblos  had 
no  recognizable  or  defensible  title,  how  much  more  help- 
less and  defenceless  were  individuals,  or  small  communities 
without  any  such  semblance  of  pueblo  organization  ! 

Most  of  the  original  Mexican  grants  included  tracts  of 
land  on  which  Indians  were  living,  sometimes  large  vil- 
lages of  them.  In  many  of  these  grants,  in  accordance 
with  the  old  Spanish  law  or  custom,  was  incorporated  a 
clause  protecting  the  Indians.  They  were  to  be  left  un- 
disturbed in  their  homes :  the  portion  of  the  grant  occu- 
pied by  them  did  not  belong  to  the  grantee  in  any  such 
sense  as  to  entitle  him  to  eject  them.  The  land  on  which 
they  were  living,  and  the  land  they  were  cultivating  at  the 
time  of  the  grant,  belonged  to  them  as  long  as  they 
pleased  to  occupy  it.  In  many  of  the  grants  the  boun- 
daries of  the  Indians'  reserved  portion  of  the  propert}-  were 
carefully  marked  off;  and  the  instances  were  rare  in  which 
Mexican  grantees  disturbed  or  in  any  wa}-  interfered  with 
Indians  living  on  their  estates.  There  was  no  reason  why 
they  should.  There  was  plent}*  of  land  and  to  spare,  and 
it  was  simply  a  convenience  and  an  advantage  to  have  the 
skilled  and  docile  Indian  laborer  on  the  ground. 

But  when  the  easy-going,  generous,  improvident  Mexi- 
can needed  or  desired  to  sell  his  grant,  and  the  sharp 
American  was  on  hand  to  buy  it,  then  was  brought  to  light 
the  helplessness  of  the  Indians'  position.  What  cared 
the  sharp  American  for  that  sentimental  clause,  "without 
injury  to  the  Indians"?  Not  a  farthing.  Why  should 
he?  His  government,  before  him,  had  decided  that  all 
the  lands  belonging  to  the  old  missions,  excepting  the 
small  portions  technically  held  as  church  property,  and 
therefore  "out  of  commerce,"  were  government  "lands. 
None  of  the  Indians  living  on  those  lands  at  the  time  of 
the  American  possession  were  held  to  have  any  right  — 
not  even  "color  of  right"  —  to  them.  That  they  and 
their  ancestors  had  been  cultivating  them  for  three  quarters 


MISSION  INDIANS  IN  CALIFORNIA.  81 

of  a  century  made  no  difference.  Americans  wishing 
to  pre-empt  claims  on  any  of  these  so-called  government 
lands  did  not  regard  the  presence  on  them  of  Indian  fam- 
ilies or  communities  as  any  more  of  a  barrier  than  the 
presence  of  so  many  coyotes  or  foxes.  The}'  would  not 
hesitate  to  certify  to  the  laud  office  that  such  lands  were 
"unoccupied."  Still  less,  then,  need  the  purchaser  of 
tracts  covered  by  old  Mexican  grants  hold  himself  bound 
to  regard  the  poor  cumberers  of  the  ground,  who,  having 
no  legal  right  whatever,  had  been  all  their  3*ears  living  on 
the  tolerance  of  a  silly,  good-hearted  Mexican  proprietor. 
The  American  wanted  every  rod  of  his  land,  every  drop 
of  water  on  it ;  his  schemes  were  boundless  ;  his  greed  in- 
satiable ;  he  had  no  use  for  Indians.  His  plan  did  not 
embrace  them,  and  could  not  enlarge  itself  to  take  them 
in.  The}-  must  go.  This  is,  in  brief,  the  summing  up  of 
the  way  in  which  has  come  about  the  present  pitiable  state 
of  the  California  Mission  Indians. 

In  1852  a  report  in  regard  to  these  Indians  was  made 
to  the  Interior  Department  by  the  Hon.  B.  D.  Wilson,  of 
Los  Angeles.  It  is  an  admirable  paper,  clear  and  exhaus- 
tive. Mr.  Wilson  was  an  old  Californian,  had  known  the 
Indians  well,  and  had  been  eyewitness  to  much  of  the 
cruelty  and  injustice  done  them.  He  says  :  — 

"  In  the  fall  of  the  missions,  accomplished  by  private  cupid- 
ity and  political  ambition,  philanthropy  laments  the  failure  of 
one  of  the  grandest  experiments  ever  made  for  the  elevation  of 
this  unfortunate  race." 

He  estimates  that  there  were  at  that  time  in  the  counties 
of  Tulare,  Santa  Barbara,  Los  Angeles,  and  San  Diego 
over  fifteen  thousand  Indians  who  had  been  connected 
with  the  missions  in  those  counties.  They  were  classified 
as  the  Tularenos,  Cahuillas,  San  Luisenos,  and  Dieguenos, 
the  latter  two  being  practically  one  nation,  speaking  one 
language,  and  being  more  generally  Christianized  than  the 
others.  They- furnished,  Mr.  Wilson  sa}-s,  "the  majority 
of  the  laborers,  mechanics,  and  servants  of  San  Diego  and 
Los  Angeles  counties."  The}-  all  spoke  the  Spanish  lan- 
guage, and  a  not  inconsiderable  number  could  read  and 
write  it.  They  had  built  all  the  houses  in  the  countiy,  had 
taught  the  whites  how  to  make  brick,  mud  mortar,  how 
0 


82  CALIFORNIA   AND   OREGON. 

to  use  asphalt  on  roofs  ;  they  understood  irrigation,  were 
good  herders,  reapers,  etc.  The}-  were  paid  only  half  the 
wages  paid  to  whites  ;  and  being  immoderate  gamblers, 
often  gambled  away  on  Saturday  night  and  Sunday  all  they 
had  earned  in  the  week.  At  that  time  in  Los  Angeles 
nearly  every  other  house  in  town  was  a  grog-shop  for  In- 
dians. In  the  San  Pasqual  valley  there  were  twenty  white 
vagabonds,  all  rum-sellers,  squatted  at  one  time  around  the 
Indian  pueblo.  The  Los  Angeles  ayuntamiento  had  passed 
an  edict  declaring  that  •'  all  Indians  without  masters"  — 
significant  phrase  !  —  must  live  outside  the  town  limits  ; 
also,  that  all  Indians  who  could  not  show  papers  from  the 
alcalde  of  the  pueblo  in  which  they  lived,  should  be  treated 
as  "  horse  thieves  and  enemies." 

On  Sunday  nights  the  squares  and  streets  of  Los  An- 
geles were  often  to  be  seen  full  of  Indians  lying  about 
helpless  in  every  stage  of  intoxication.  They  were  picked 
up  by  scores,  unconscious,  carried  to  jail,  locked  up,  and 
early  Monday  morning  hired  out  to  the  highest  bidders  at 
the  jail  gates.  Horrible  outrages  were  committed  on  In- 
dian women  and  children.  In  some  instances  the  Indians 
armed  to  avenge  these,  and  were  themselves  killed. 

These  are  a  few  out  of  hundreds  of  similar  items  to  be 
gathered  from  the  newspaper  records  of  the  time.  Condi- 
tions such  as  these  could  have  but  one  outcome.  Twenty 
years  later,  when  another  special  report  on  the  condition 
of  the  California  Mission  Indians  was  asked  for  by  the 
Government,  not  over  five  thousand  Indians  remained  to 
be  reported  on.  Vice  and  cruelty  had  reaped,  large  har- 
vests each  year.  Many  of  the  rich  valleys,  which  at  the 
time  of  Mr.  Wilson's  report  had  been  under  cultivation  by 
Indians,  were  now  filled  by  white  settlers,  the  Indians  all 
gone,  no  one  could  tell  where.  In  some  instances  whole 
villages  of  them  had  been  driven  off  at  once  by  fraudu- 
lently procured  and  fraudulently  enforced  claims.  One  of 
the  most  heart-rending  of  these  cases  was  that  of  the 
Temecula  Indians. 

The  Temecula  valley  lies  in  the  northeast  corner  of  San 
Diego  County.  It  is  watered  by  two  streams  and  has  a 
good  soil.  The  Southern  California  Railroad  now  crosses 
it.  It  was  an  appanage  of  the  San  Luis  Rey  Mission,  and 
the  two  hundred  Indians  who  were  living  there  were  the 


MISSION  INDIANS  IN  CALIFORNIA.  83 

children  and  grandchildren  of  San  Luis  Rey  neophytes. 
The  greater  part  of  the  valley  was  under  cultivation. 
They  had  cattle,  horses,  sheep.  In  1865  a  "special 
agent"  of  the  United  States  Government  held  a  grand 
Indian  convention  there.  Eighteen  villages  were  repre- 
sented, and  the  numbers  of  inhabitants,  stock,  vineyards,' 
orchards,  were  reported.  The  Indians  were  greatly  elated 
at  this  evidence  of  the  Government's  good  intentions  to- 
ward them.  They  set  up  a  tall  liberty-pole,  and  bringing 
forth  a  United  States  flag,  which  they  had  kept  carefully 
hidden  away  ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  civil  war, 
they  flung  it  out  to  the  winds  in  token  of  their  loyalty. 
"It  is  astonishing,"  says  one  of  the  San  Diego  news- 
papers of  the  day,  "  that  these  Indians  have  behaved  so 
well,  considering  the  pernicious  teachings  the}'  have  had 
from  the  secessionists  in  our  midst." 

There  was  already  anxiety  in  the  minds  of  the  Temecula 
Indians  as  to  their  title  to  their  lands.  All  that  was  in 
existence  to  show  that  they  had  any,  was  the  protecting 
clause  in  an  old  Mexican  grant.  To  be  sure,  the  man  was 
still  alive  who  had  assisted  in  marking  off  the  boundaries 
of  their  part  of  this  original  Temecula  grant ;  but  his  tes- 
timony could  establish  nothing  beyond  the  letter  of  the 
clause  as  it  stood.  They  earnestly  implored  the  agent  to 
lay  the  case  before  the  Interior  Department.  Whether  he 
did  or  not  I  do  not  know,  but  this  is  the  sequel :  On  April 
15,  1869,  an  action  was  brought  in  the  District  Court,  in 
San  Francisco,  by  five  men,  against  "  Andrew  Johnson, 
Thaddeus  Stevens,  Horace  Greeley,  and  one  thousand  In- 
dians, and  other  parties  whose  names  are  unknown."  It 
was  "  a  bill  to  quit  title,"  an  "  action  to  recover  posses- 
sion of  certain  real  estate  bounded  thus  and  thus."  It 
included  the  Temecula  valley.  It  was  based  on  grants 
made  by  Governor  Micheltorena  in  1844.  The  defendants 
cited  were  to  appear  in  court  within  twent}-  da3*s. 

The  Indians  appealed  to  the  Catholic  bishop  to  help 
them.  He  wrote  to  one  of  the  judges  an  imploring  letter, 
saying,  "Can  you  not  do  something  to  save  these  poor 
Indians  from  being  driven  out?"  But  the  scheme  bad 
been  too  skilfully  plotted.  There  was  no  way  —  or,  at 
any  rate,  no  way  was  found —  of  protecting  the  Indians. 
The  day  came  when  a  sheriff,  bringing  a  posse  of  men  and 


84  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

a  warrant  which  could  not  be  legally  resisted,  arrived  to 
eject  the  Indian  families  from  their  houses  and  drive  them 
out  of  the  valley.  The  Indians'  first  impulse  was  as  de- 
termined as  it  could  have  been  if  they  had  been  white,  to 
resist  the  outrage.  But  on  being  reasoned  with  by  friends, 
who  sadly  and  with  sharne  explained  to  them  that  by  thus 
resisting,  they  would  simply  make  it  the  duty  of  the  sheriff 
to  eject  them  by  force,  and,  if  necessary,  shoot  down 
any  who  opposed  the  executing  of  his  warrant,  they  sub- 
mitted. But  they  refused  to  lift  hand  to  the  moving. 
They  sat  down,  men  and  women,  on  the  ground,  and 
looked  on,  some  wailing  and  weeping,  some  dogged  and 
silent,  while  the  sheriff  and  his  men  took  out  of  the  neat 
little  adobe  houses  their  small  stores  of  furniture,  clothes, 
and  food,  and  piled  them  on  wagons  to  be  carried  — 
where?  —  anywhere  the  exiles  chose,  so  long  as  they  did 
not  chance  to  choose  a  piece  of  any  white  man's  land. 

A  Mexican  woman  is  now  living  in  that  Temecula  val- 
le}T  who  told  me  the  story  of  this  moving.  The  facts  I  had 
learned  before  from  records  of  one  sort  and  another.  But 
standing  on  the  spot,  looking  at  the  ruins  of  the  little  adobe 
houses,  and  the  walled  graveyard  full  of  graves,  and  hear- 
ing this  woman  tell  how  she  kept  her  doors  and  windows 
shut,  and  could  not  bear  to  look  out  while  the  deed  was 
being  done,  I  realized  forcibly  how  different  a  thing  is 
history  seen  from  history  written  and  read. 

It  took  three  days  to  move  them.  Procession  after  pro- 
cession, with  cries  and  tears,  walked  slowly  behind  the 
wagons  carrying  their  household  goods.  They  took  the 
tule  roofs  off  the  little  houses,  and  carried  them  along. 
They  could  be  used  again.  Some  of  these  Indians,  wish- 
ing to  stay  as  near  as  possible  to  their  old  home,  settled  in 
a  small  valley,  only  three  miles  and  a  half  away  to  the 
I  south.  It  was  a  dreary,  hot  little  valley,  bare,  with  low, 
rocky  buttes  cropping  out  on  either  side,  and  with  scanty 
growths  of  bushes ;  there  was  not  a  drop  of  water  in  it. 
Here  the  exiles  went  to  work  again  ;  built  their  huts  of 
reeds  and  straw ;  set  up  a  booth  of  boughs  for  the  priest, 
when  he  came,  to  say  mass  in  ;  and  a  rude  wooden  cross 
to  consecrate  their  new  graveyard  on  a  stony  hill-side. 
They  put  their  huts  on  barren  knolls  here  and  there,  where 
nothing  could  grow.  On  the  tillable  land  they  planted 


MISSION  INDIANS  IN  CALIFORNIA-  85 

wheat  or  barlej^  or  orchards,  —  some  patches  not  ten  feet 
square,  the  largest  not  over  three  or  four  acres.  Tim- 
hollowed  out  the  base  of  one  of  the  rocky  buttes,  sunk  a 
well  there,  and  found  water. 

I  think  none  of  us  who  saw  this  little  refugee  village  will 
ever  forget  it.  The  whole  place  was  a  series  of  pictures  ; 
and  knowing  its  history,  we  found  in  each  low  roof  and 
paling  the  dignity  of  heroic  achievement.  Near  man}-  of 
the  huts  stood  great  round  baskets  woven  of  twigs,  reach- 
ing half-way  up  to  the  eaves  and  looking  like  huge  birds'- 
nests.  These  were  their  granaries,  holding  acorns  and 
wheat.  Women  with  red  pottery  jars  on  their  heads  and 
on  their  backs  were  going  to  and  from  the  well ;  old  men 
were  creeping  about,  bent  over,  carrying  loads  of  fagots 
that  would  have  seemed  heavy  for  a  donkey  ;  aged  women 
sitting  on  the  ground  were  diligently  plaiting  baskets,  too 
busy  or  too  old  to  give  more  than  a  passing  look  at  us. 
A  group  of  women  was  at  work  washing  wool  in  great 
stone  bowls,  probably  hundreds  of  years  old.  The  inte- 
riors of  some  of  the  houses  were  exquisitely  neat  and 
orderly,  with  touching  attempts  at  adornment,  —  pretty 
baskets  and  shelves  hanging  on  the  walls,  and  over  the 
beds  canopies  of  bright  calico.  On  some  of  the  beds,  the 
sheets  and  pillow-cases  were  trimmed  with  wide  hand- 
wrought  lace,  made  by  the  Indian  women  themselves. 
This  is  one  of  their  arts  which  date  back  to  the  mission 
days.  Some  of  the  lace  is  beautiful  and  fine,  and  of  pat- 
terns like  the  old  church  laces.  It  was  pitiful  to  see  the 
poor  creatures  in  almost  every  one  of  the  hovels  bringing 
out  a  }-ard  or  two  of  their  lace  to  sell ;  and  there  was 
hardly  a  house  which  had  not  the  lace-maker's  frame  hang- 
ing on  the  wall,  with  an  unfinished  piece  of  lace  stretched 
in  it.  The  making  of  this  lace  requires  much  time  and 
patience.  It  is  done  by  first  drawing  out  all  the  length- 
wise threads  of  a  piece  of  fine  linen  or  cotton ;  then  the 
threads  which  are  left  are  sewed  over  and  over  into  an 
endless  variety  of  intricate  patterns.  Sometimes  the 
whole  design  is  done  in  solid  button-hole  stitch,  or  solid 
figures  are  filled  in  on  an  open  network  made  of  the 
threads.  The  baskets  were  finery  woven,  of  good  shapes, 
and  excellent  decorative  patterns  in  brown  and  black  on 
}•  el  low  or  white. 


86  CALIFORNIA   AND  OREGON. 

Every  face,  except  those  of  the  very  young,  was  sad  beyond 
description.  They  were  stamped  indelibly  by  generations 
of  suffering,  immovable  distrust  also  underlying  the  sorrow. 
It  was  hard  to  make  them  smile.  To  all  our  expressions  of 
good-will  and  interest  they  seemed  indifferent,  and  received 
in  silence  the  money  we  paid  them  for  baskets  and  lace. 

The  word  "Temecula"  is  an  Indian  word,  signifying' 
"grief"  or  "mourning."  It  seems  to  have  had  a  strangely 
prophetic  fitness  for  the  valley  to  which  it  was  given. 

While  I  am  writing  these  lines,  the  news  comes  that, 
by  an  executive  order  of  the  President,  the  little  valley  in 
which  these  Indians  took  refuge  has  been  set  apart  for 
them  as  a  reservation.  No  doubt  the}-  know  how  much 
executive  orders  creating  Indian  reservations  are  worth. 
There  have  been  several  such  made  and  revoked  in  Cali- 
fornia within  their  memories.  The  San  Pasqual  valley 
was  at  one  time  set  apart  by  executive  order  as  a  reserva- 
tion for  Indians.  This  was  in  1870.  There  were  then 
living  in  the  valley  between  two  and  three  hundred  In- 
dians ;  some  of  them  had  been  members  of  the  original 
pueblo  established  there  in  1835. 

The  comments  of  the  California  newspapers  on  this  ex- 
ecutive order  are  amusing,  or  would  be  if  they  did  not 
record  such  tragedy.  It  was  followed  by  an  outburst  of 
virtuous  indignation  all  along  the  coast.  One  paper  said : 

"  The  iniquity  of  this  scheme  is  made  manifest  when  we  state 
the  fact  that  the  Indians  of  that  part  of  the  State  are  Mission  In- 
dians who  are  settled  in  villages  and  engaged  in  farming  like  the 
white  settlers.  ...  It  would  be  gross  injustice  to  the  Indians  them- 
selves as  well  as  to  the  white  settlers  in  San  Pasqual.  .  .  .  These 
Indians  are  as  fixed  in  their  habitations  as  the  whites,  and  have 
fruit-trees,  buildings,  and  other  valuable  improvements  to  make 
them  contented  and  comfortable.  Until  within  the  past  two  or 
three  years  they  raised  more  fruit  than  the  white  settlers  of  the 
southern  counties.  There  is  belonging  to  an  Indian  family 
there  a  fig-tree  that  is  the  largest  in  the  State,  covering  a  space 
sixty  paces  in  diameter.  ...  A  remonstrance  signed  by  over  five 
hundred  citizens  and  indorsed  by  every  office-holder  in  the 
county  has  gone  on  to  Washington  against  this  swindle.  .  .  . 
This  act  on  the  part  of  the  Government  is  no  better  than  high- 
way robbery,  and  the  persons  engaged  in  it  are  too  base  to  be 
called  men.  There  is  not  a  person  "in  either  of  these  valleys  that 
will  not  be  ruined  pecuniarily  if  these  orders  are  enforced." 


MISSION  INDfANS  IN  CALIFORNIA.  87 

Looking  through  files  of  newspapers  of  that  time,  I 
found  only  one  that  had  the  moral  courage  to  uphold  the 
measure.  That  paper  said,  — 

"  Most  of  the  inhabitants  are  now  Indians  who  desire  to  be 
protected  in  their  ancient  possessions;  and  the  Government  is 
about  to  give  them  that  protection,  after  a  long  delay." 

One  editor,  having  nearly  exhausted  the  resources  of  in- 
vective and  false  statement,  actuall}'  had  the  hardihood  to 
say  that  Indians  could  not  be  induced  to  live  on  this  reser- 
vation because  "there  are  no  acorn-bearing  trees  there, 
and  the  acorns  furnish  their  principal  food." 

The  congressmen  and  their  clients  were  successful.  The 
order  was  revoked.  In  less  than  four  years  the  San  Pas- 
qual  Indians  are  heard  from  again.  A  justice  of  the 
peace  in  the  San  Pasqual  valley  writes  to  the  district 
attoi-ney  to  know  if  anything  can  be  done  to  protect  these 
Indians. 

"  Last  year,"  he  says,  "  the  heart  of  this  rancheria  (vil- 
lage) was  filed  on  and  pre-empted.  The  settlers  are  begin- 
ning to  plough  up  the  land.  The  Los  Angeles  Land  Office 
has  informed  the  Indians  that,  not  being  citizens,  they 
cannot  retain  any  claim.  It  seems  very  hard,"  savs  the 
judge,  "  aside  from  the  danger  of  difficulties  likely  to  arise 
from  it." 

About  this  time  a  bill  introduced  in  Congress  to  pro- 
vide homes  for  the  Mission  Indians  on  the  reservation 
plan  was  reported  unfavorably  upon  by  a  Senate  commit- 
tee, on  the  ground  that  all  the  Mission  Indians  were  really 
American  citizens.  The  year  following,  the  chief  of  the 
Pala  Indians,  being  brought  to  the  county  clerk's  office  to 
register  as  a  voter,  was  refused  on  the  ground  that,  being 
an  Indian,  he  was  not  a  citizen.  In  1850  a  small  band 
of  Indians  living  in  San  Diego  County  were  taxed  to  the 
amount  of  six  hundred  dollars,  which  the}'  paid,  the  sheriff 
said.  '•  without  a  murmur."  The  next  year  the)'  refused. 
The  sheriff  wrote  to  the  district  attorney,  who  replied  that 
the  tax  must  be  paid.  The  Indians  said  the}'  had  no 
money.  They  had  only  bows,  arrows,  wigwams,  and  a  few 
cattle.  Finally,  they  were  compelled  to  drive  in  enough  of 
their  cattle  to  pay  the  tax.  One  of  the  San  Diego  news- 


88  CALIFORNIA  AND   OREGON. 

papers  spoke  of  the  transaction  as  "  a  small  business  to  un- 
dertake to  collect  taxes  from  a  parcel  of  naked  Indians." 

The  year  before  these  events  happened  a  special  agent, 
John  G.  Ames,  had  been  sent  out  by  the  Government  to 
investigate  and  report  upon  the  condition  of  the  Mission 
Indians.  He  had  assured  them  "of  the  sincere  desire  of 
the  Government  to  secure  their  rights  and  promote  their  in- 
terests, and  of  its  intention  to  do  whatever  might  be  found 
practicable  in  this  direction."  He  told  them  he  had  been 
*'  sent  out  by  the  Government  to  hear  their  story,  to  ex- 
amine carelulty  into  their  condition,  and  to  recommend 
such  measures  as  seemed  under  the  circumstances  most 
desirable." 

Mr.  Ames  found  in  the  San  Pasqual  valley-  a  white  man 
who  had  just  built  for  himself  a  good  house,"  and  claimed 
to  have  pre-empted  the  greater  part  of  the  Indians'  village. 
He  "  had  actually  paid  the  price  of  the  land  to  the  reg- 
ister of  the  land  office  of  the  district,  and  was  daily  ex- 
pecting the  patent  from  Washington.  He  owned  that  it 
was  hard  to  wrest  from  these  well-disposed  and  industri- 
ous creatures  the  homes  they  had  built  up.  '  But,'  said 
he,  '  if  I  had  not  done  -it,  somebocty  else  would ;  for  all 
agree  that  the  Indian  has  no  right  to  public  lands.' " 

This  sketch  of  the  history  of  the  San  Pasqual  and  Te- 
mecula  bands  of  Indians  is  a  fair  showing  of  what,  with 
little  variation,  has  been  the  fate  of  the  Mission  Indians 
all  through  Southern  California.  The  combination  of 
cruelty  and  unprincipled  greed  on  the  part  of  the  Ameri- 
can settlers,  with  culpable  ignorance,  indifference,  and 
neglect  on  the  part  of  the  Government  at  Washington  has 
resulted  in  an  aggregate  of  monstrous  injustice,  which  no 
one  can  fully  realize  without  studying  the  facts  on  the 
ground.  In  the  winter  of  1882  I  visited  this  San  Pas- 
qual valley.  I  drove  over  from  San  Diego  with  the  Cath- 
,'olic  priest,  who  goes  there  three  or  four  Sundaj's  in  a 
year,  to  hold  service  in  a  little  adobe  chapel  built  by  the 
Indians  in  the  days  of  their  prosperity.  This  beautiful 
valley  is  from  One  to  three  miles  wide,  and  perhaps  twelve 
long.  It  is  walled  by  high-rolling,  soft-contoured  hills, 
which  are  now  one  continuous  wheat-field.  There  are,  in 
sight  of  the  chapel,  a  dozen  or  so  adobe  houses,  many  of 
which  were  built  by  the  Indians  ;  in  all  of  them  except 


MISSION  INDIANS  IN  CALIFORNIA.  89 

one  are  now  living  the  robber  whites,  who  have  driven  the 
Indians  out ;  only  one  Indian  still  remains  in  the  valley. 
He  earns  a  meagre  living  for  himself  and  family  by  doing 
day's  work  for  the  fanners  who  have  taken  his  land.  The 
rest  of  the  Indians  are  hidden  awa}-  in  the  canons  and  rifts 
of  the  near  hills,  —  wherever  they  can  find  a  bit  of  ground  to 
keep  a  horse  or  two  and  raise  a  little  grain.  Thev  have 
sought  the  most  inaccessible  spots,  reached  often  by  miles 
of  difficult  trail.  They  have  fled  into  secret  lairs  like 
hunted  wild  beasts.  The  Catholic  priest  of  San  Diego  is 
much  beloved  by  them.  He  has  been  their  friend  for 
manv  years.  When  he  goes  to  hold  service,  they  gather 
from  their  various  hiding-places  and  refuges  ;  sometimes, 
on  a  special  fete  day,  over  two  hundred  come.  But  on 
the  day  I  was  there,  the  priest  being  a  young  man  who 
was  a  stranger  to  them,  only  a  few  were  present.  It  was 
a  pitiful  sight.  The  dilapidated  adobe  building,  empty 
and  comfortless ;  the  ragged  poverty-stricken  creatures, 
kneeling  on  the  bare  ground,  —  a  few  Mexicans,  with  some 
gaudiness  of  attire,  setting  off  the  Indians'  poverty  still 
more.  In  front  of  the  chapel,  on  a  rough  cross-beam  sup- 
ported by  two  forked  posts,  set  awry  in  the  ground,  swung 
a  bell  bearing  the  date  of  1770.  It  was  one  of  the  bells  of 
the  old  San  Diego  Mission.  Standing  bareheaded,  the 
priest  rang  it  long  and  loud :  he  rang  it  several  times  be- 
fore the  leisurely  groups  that  were  plainly  to  be  seen  in 
doorways  or  on  roadsides  bestirred  themselves  to  make 
any  haste  to  come.  After  the  service  I  had  a  long  talk, 
through  an  interpreter,  with  an  aged  Indian,  the  oldest 
now  living  in  the  county.  He  is  said  to  be  considerably 
over  a  hundred,  and  his  looks  corroborate  the  statement. 
He  is  almost  blind,  and  has  snow-white  hair,  and  a  strange 
voice,  a  kind  of  shrill  whisper.  He  says  he  recollects  the 
rebuilding  of  the  San  Diego  Mission  ;  though  he  was  a 
very  little  boy  then,  he  helped  to  carry  the  mud  mortar. 
This  was  one  hundred  and  three  years  ago.  Instances  of 
much  greater  longevity  than  this,  however,  are  not  uncom- 
mon among  the  California  Indians.  I  asked  if  he  had  a 
good  time  in  the  mission.  "Yes,  yes,"  he  said,  turning 
his  sightless  eyes  up  to  the  sky ;  "  much  good  time," 
''plenty  to  eat,"  "a£o/e,"  '•'•pozzole^'  "meat;"  now,  "no 
meat;"  "all  the  time  to  beg,  beg;"  "all  the  time 


90  CALIFORNIA  AND   OREGON. 

hungry."  His  wife,  who  is  older  than  he,  is  still  living, 
though  "  her  hair  is  not  so  white."  She  was  ill,  and  was 
with  relatives  far  away  in  the  mountains ;  he  lifted  his 
hand  and  pointed  in  the  direction  of  the  place.  "Much 
sick,  much  sick ;  she  will  never  walk  any  more,"  he  said, 
with  deep  feeling  in  his  voice. 

During  the  afternoon  the  Indians  were  continually  com- 
ing and  going  at  the  shop  connected  with  the  inn  where 
we  had  stopped,  some  four  miles  from  the  valley.  The 
keeper  of  the  shop  and  inn  said  he-  always  trusted  them. 
They  were  "good  pay."  "  Give  them  their  time  and  they  '11 
always  pay  ;  and  if  they  die  their  relations  will  pay  the  last 
cent."  Some  of  them  he  would  "trust  any  time  as  high 
as  twenty  dollars."  When  I  asked  him  how  they  earned 
their  money,  he  seemed  to  have  no  very  distinct  idea. 
Some  of  them  had  a  little  stock  ;  they  might  now  and  then 
sell  a  horse  or  a  cow,  he  said ;  the}'  hired  as  laborers 
whenever  they  could  get  a  chance,  working  at  sheep- 
shearing  in  the  spring  and  autumn,  and  at  grape-picking 
in  the  vintage  season.  A  few  of  them  had  a  little  wheat 
to  sell ;  sometimes  they  paid  him  in  wheat.  There  were 
not  nearly  so  many  of  them,  however,  as  there  had  been 
when  he  first  opened  his  shop ;  not  half  so  many,  he 
thought.  Where  had  they  gone  ?  He  shrugged  his  shoul- 
ders. "  Who  knows  ?  "  he  said. 

The  most  wretched  of  all  the  Mission  Indians  now, 
however,  are  not  these  who  have  been  thus  driven  into  hill 
fastnesses  and  waterless  valleys  to  wrest  a  living  where 
white  men  would  starve.  There  is  in  their  fate  the  climax 
of  misery,  but  not  of  degradation.  The  latter  cannot  be 
reached  in  the  wilderness.  It  takes  the  neighborhood  of 
the  white  man  to  accomplish  it.  On  the  outskirts  of  the 
town  of  San  Diego  are  to  be  seen,  here  and  there,  hud- 
dled groups  of  what,  at  a  distance,  might  be  ta^en  for 
piles  of  refuse  and  brush,  old  blankets,  old  patiches  of 
sail-cloth,  old  calico,  dead  pine  boughs,  and  sticks  all 
hrapc-d  together  in-^iapeless  mounds ;  hollow,  9116  per- 
ceives on  coming  nearer  them,  and  high  enough  for  human 
beings  to  creep  under.  These  are  the  homes  of  Indians. 
I  have  seen  the  poorest  huts  of  the  most  poverty-stricken 
wilds  in  Italy,  Bavaria,  Norway,  and  New  Mexico ;  but 
never  have  I  seen  anything,  in  shape  of  shelter  for  human 


MISSION  INDIANS  IN  CALIFORNIA.  91 

creatures,  so  loathsome  as  the  kennels  in  which  some  of 
the  San  Diego  Indians  are  living.  Most  of  these  Indians 
are  miserable,  worthless  beggars,  drunkards  of  course,  and 
worse.  Even  for  its  own  sake,  it  would  seem  that  the 
town  would  devise  some  scheme  of  help  and  redemption 
for  such  outcasts.  There  is  a  school  in  San  Diego  for  the 
Indian  children ;  it  is  supported  in  part  b}-  the  Govern- 
ment, in  part  by  charity  ;  but  work  must  be  practically 
thrown  away  on  children  that  are  to  spend  eighteen  hours 
out  of  the  twenty-four  surrounded  by  such  filth  and  vice. 

Coming  from  the  study  of  the  records  of  the  old  mis- 
sion times,  with  the  picture  fresh  and  vivid  of  the  tranquil 
industry  and  comfort  of  the  Indians'  lives  in  the  mission 
establishments,  one  gazes  with  double  grief  on  such  a 
spectacle  as  this.  Some  of  these  Indian  hovels  are  within 
a  short  distance  of  the  beach  where  the  friars  first  landed, 
in  1769,  and  began  their  work.  No  doubt,  Father  Ju- 
nipero  and  Father  Crespi,  arm  in  arm,  in  ardent  converse, 
full  of  glowing  anticipation  of  the  grand  future  results  of 
their  labors,  walked  again  and  again,  up  and  down,  on  the 
very  spot  where  these  miserable  wretches  are  living  to-day. 
One  cannot  fancy  Father  Junipero's  fieiy  soul,  to  whatever 
far  sphere  it  may  have  been  translated,  looking  down  on 
this  ruin  without  pangs  of  indignation. 

There  are  still  left  in  the  mountain  ranges  of  South 
California  a  few  Indian  villages  which  will  probably,  for 
some  time  to  come,  preserve  their  independent  existence. 
Some  of  them  number  as  many  as  two  or  three  hundred 
inhabitants.  Each  has  its  chief,  or,  as  he  is  now  called, 
"  cnpitan."  They  have  their  own  sj'stem  of  government 
of  the  villages ;  it  is  autocratic,  but  in  the  main  it  works 
well.  In  one  of  these  villages,  that  of  the  Cahuillas,  sit- 
uated in  the  San  Jacinto  range,  is  a  school  whose  teacher 
is  paid  by  the  United  States  Government.  She  is  a  widow 
witli  one  little  daughter.  She  has  built  for  herself  a  room 
adjoining  the  school-house.  In  this  she  lives  alone,  with 
her  child,  in  the  heart  of  the  Indian  village  ;  there  is  not 
a  white  person  within  ten  miles.  She  says  that  the  vil- 
lage is  as  well-ordered,  quiet,  and  peaceable  as  it  is  possi- 
ble for  a  village  to  be  ;  and  she  feels  1'ar  safer,  surrounded 
by  these  three  hundred  Cahuillas,  than  she  would  feel  in 
most  of  the  California  towns.  The  Cahuillas  (pronounced 


92  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

Kaweeyahs)  were  one  of  the  fiercest  and  most  powerful  of 
the  tribes.  The  name  signifies  ''master,"  or  "powerful 
nation."  A  great  number  of  the  neophytes  of  the  San 
Gabriel  Mission  were  from  this  tribe  ;  but  a  large  propor- 
tion of  them  were  never  attached  to  an}'  mission. 

Their  last  great  chief,  Juan  Antonio,  died  twenty  years 
ago.  At  the  time  of  the  Mexican  War  he  received  the 
title  of  General  from  General  Kearney,  and  never  after-/ 
ward  appeared  in  the  villages  of  the  whites  without  some 
fragmentary  attempts  at  military  uniform.  He  must  have 
been  a  grand  character,  with  all  his  barbarism.  He  ruled 
his  band  like  an  emperor,  and  never  rode  abroad  without 
an  escort  of  from  twenty  to  thirty  men.  When  he  stopped 
one  of  his  Indians  ran  forward,  bent  down,  took  off  his 
spurs,  then,  kneeling  on  all-fours,  made  of  his  back  a 
stool,  on  which  Juan  stepped  in  dismounting  and  mount- 
ing. In  1850  an  Indian  of  this  tribe,  having  murdered 
another  Indian,  was  taken  prisoner  by  the  civil  authorities 
and  carried  to  Jurupa  to  be  tried.  Before  the  proceedings 
had  begun,  Juan,  with  a  big  following  of  armed  Indians, 
dashed  up  to  the  court-house,  strode  in  alone,  and  de- 
manded that  the  prisoner  be  surrendered  to  him. 

"  I  come  not  here  as  a  child,"  he  said.  "  I  wish  to  pun- 
ish my  people  my  own  way.  If  they  deserve  hanging,  I 
will  hang  them.  If  a  white  man  deserves  hanging,  let  the 
white  man  hang  him.  I  am  done." 

The  prisoner  was  given  up.  The  Indians  strapped  him 
on  a  horse,  and  rode  back  to  their  village,  where,  in  an 
open  grave,  the  bod}'  of  the  murdei*ed  man  had  been  laid. 
Into  this  grave,  on  the  top  of  the  corpse  of  his  victim, 
Juan  Antonio,  with  his  own  hands,  flung  the  murderer 
alive,  and  ordered  the  grave  instantly  filled  up  with  earth. 

There  are  said  to  have  been  other  instance's  of  his  deal- 
ings with  offenders  nearly  as  summary  and  severe  as  this. 
He  is  described  as  looking  like  an  old  African  lion,  shaggy 
ami  licrce  ;  but  he  was  :il\vays  cordial  and  affectionate  in  his 
relations  with  the  whites.  He  died  in  1863,  of  small-pox, 
in  a  terrible  epidemic  which  carried  off  thousands  of  Indians. 

This  Cahuilla  village  is  in  a  small  valley,  high  up  in  the 
San  Jacinto  range.  The  Indians  are  very  poor,  but  they 
are  industrious  and  hard- working.  The  men  raise  stock, 
and  go  out  in  bands  as  sheep-shearers  and  harvesters. 


MISSION  INDIANS  IN  CALIFORNIA.  93 

The  women  make  baskets,  lace,  and  from  the  fibre  of  the 
yucca  plant,  beautiful  and  durable  mats,  called  tk  cocas," 
which  are  much  sought  after  by  California  ranchmen  as 
saddle-mats.  The  yucca  fibres  are  soaked  and  beaten 
like  flax ;  some  are  dyed  brown,  some  bleached  white,  and 
the  two  woven  together  in  a  great  variety  of  patterns. 

In  the  San  Jacinto  valley,  some  thirty  miles  south  of 
these  Calmillas,  is  another  Indian  village  called  Saboba. 
These  Indians  have  occupied  and  cultivated  this  ground 
since  the  days  of  the  missions.  They  have  good  adobe 
houses,  many  acres  of  wheat-fields,  little  peach  and  apri- 
cot orchards,  irrigating  ditches,  and  some  fences.  In  one 
of  the  houses  I  found  a  neatly  laid  wooden  floor,  a  sewing- 
machine,  and  the  walls  covered  with  pictures  cut  from 
illustrated  newspapers  which  had  been  given  to  them  by 
the  school  teacher.  There  is  a  Government  school  here, 
numbering  from  twenty  to  thirty ;  the  children  read  as 
well  as  average  white  children  of  their  age,  and  in  man- 
ners and  in  apparent  interest  in  their  studies,  were  far 
above  the  average  of  children  in  the  public  schools. 

One  of  the  colony  schemes,  so  common  now  in  Cali- 
fornia, has  been  formed  for  the  opening  up  and  settling  of 
the  San  Jacinto  valley.  This  Indian  village  will  be  in  the 
colony's  way.  In  fact,  the  colony  must  have  its  lands 
and  its  water.  It  is  only  a  question  of  a  very  little  time, 
the  driving  out  of  these  Saboba  families  as  the  Temeculas 
and  San  Pasquales  were  driven,  —  by  force,  just  as  truly 
as  if  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet. 

In  one  of  the  beautiful  canons  opening  on  this  valley  is 
the  home  of  Victoriano,  an  aged  chief  of  the  band.  He  is 
living  with  his  daughter  and  grandchildren,  in  a  comfort- 
able adobe  house  at  the  head  of  the  canon.  The  vineyard 
and  peach  orchard  which  his  father  planted  there,  are  in 
good  bearing.  His  grandson  Jesus,  a  A'oung  man  twenty 
years  old,  in  the  summer  of  1881  ploughed  up  and  planted 
twenty  acres  of  wheat.  The  boy  also  studied  so  faithfully 
in  school  that  year —  his  first  year  at  school  —  that  he 
learned  to  read  well  in  the  "Fourth  Reader;"  this  in 
spite  of  his  being  absent  six  weeks,  in  both  spring  and 
autumn,  with  the  sheep-shearing  band.  A  letter  of  his, 
written  at  my  request  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  in 
behalf  of  his  people,  is  touching  in  its  simple  dignity. 


94  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

SAN  JACINTO,  CAL.,  May  29,  1882. 
MR.  TELLER. 

DKAK  SIR,  —  At  the  request  of  my  friends,  I  write  you  in 
regard  to  the  land  of  my  people. 

More  than  one  hundred  years  ago,  my  great-grandfather,  who 
was  chief  of  his  tribe,  settled  with  his  people  in  the  San  Jacinto  ; 
valley.  The  people  have  always  been  peaceful,  never  caring  for 
war,  and  have  welcomed  Americans  into  the  valley. 

Some  years  ago  a  grant  of  land  was  given  to  the  Estudillos 
by  the  Mexican  Government.  The  first  survey  did  not  take  in 
any  of  the  land  claimed  by  the  Indians  ;  but  four  years  ago  a 
new  survey  was  made,  taking  in  all  the  little  farms,  the  stream 
of  water,  and  the  village.  Upon  this  survey  the  United  States 
Government  gave  a  patent.  It  seems  hard  for  us  to  be  driven 
from  our  homes  that  we  love  as  much  as  other  people  do  theirs  ; 
and  this  danger  is  at  our  doors  now,  for  the  grant  is  being  di- 
vided and  the  village  and  land  will  be  assigned  to  some  of  the 
present  owners  of  the  grant. 

And  now,  dear  sir,  after  this  statement  of  facts,  I,  for  my 
people  (I  ask  nothing  for  myself),  appeal  to  you  for  help. 

Cannot  you  find  some  way  to  right  this  great  wrong  done  to  a 
quiet  and  industrious  people? 

Hoping  that  we  may  have  justice  done  us,  I  am 
Respectfully  yours, 

JESUS  CASTILLO. 


He  was  at  first  unwilling  to  write  it,  fearing  he  should 
be  supposed  to  be  begging  for  himself  rather  'than  for  his 
people.  His  father  was  a  Mexican  ;  and  he  has  hoped  that 
on  that  account  their  family  would  be  exempt  from  the  fate 
of  the  village  when  the  colony  comes  into  the  valley.  But 
it  is  not  probable  that  in  a  country  where  water  is  gold, 
a  stream  of  water  such  as  runs  by  Victoriano's  door  will 
be  left  long  in  the  possession  of  any  Indian  family,  what- 
ever may  be  its  relations  to  rich  Mexican  proprietors  in  the 
neighborhood.  Jesus's  mother  is  a  tall,  superbly  formed 
woman,  with  a  clear  skin,  hazel  nut-brown  eyes  that  thrill 
one  with  their  limpid  brightness,  a  nose  straight  and 
strong,  and  a  mouth  like  an  Egyptian  priestess.  She  is 
past  forty,  but  she  is  strikingly  handsome  still  ;  and  one 
does  not  wonder  at  hearing  the  tragedy  of  her  early  youth, 
when,  for  years,  she  believed  herself  the  wife  of  Jesus's 
father,  lived  in  his  house  as  a  wife,  worked  as  a  wife,  and 
bore  him  his  children.  Her  heart  broke  when  she  was 
sent  ndrift,  a  sadder  than  Hagar,  with  her  half-disowned 


MISSION  INDIANS  IN  CALIFORNIA.  95 

offspring.  Money  and  lands  did  not  heal  the  wound. 
Her  face  is  dark  with  the  sting  of  it  to-day.  When 
I  asked  her  to  sell  me  the  lace-trimmed  pillow-case  and 
sheet  from  her  bed,  her  cheeks  flushed  at  first,  and  she 
,  looked  away  haughtily  before  replying.  But,  after  a  mo- 
ment, she  consented.  They  needed  the  monej7.  She 
knows  well  that  days  of  trouble  are  in  store  for  them. 

Since  the  writing  of  this  paper  news  has  come  that  the 
long-expected  blow  has  fallen  on  this  Indian  village.  The 
colony  scheme  has  been  completed ;  the  valley  has  been 
divided  up ;  the  land  on  which  the  village  of  Saboba 
stands  is  now  the  property  of  a  San  Bernardino  merchant. 
Any  day  he  chooses,  he  can  eject  these  Indians  as  the 
Temecula  and  the  San  Pasqual  bands  were  ejected,  and 
with  far  more  show  of  legal  right. 

In  the  vicinity  of  the  San  Juan  Capistrano  Mission  are 
living  a  few  families  of  Indians,  some  of  them  the  former 
neophytes  of  the  mission.  An  old  woman  there,  named  Car- 
men, is  a  splendid  specimen  of  the  best  longevity  which  her 
race  and  the  California  air  can  produce.  We  found  her  in 
bed,  where  she  spends  most  of  her  time,  —  not  lying,  but 
sitting  cross-legged,  looking  brisk  and  energetic,  and  al- 
ways bus}-  making  lace.  Nobody  makes  finer  lace  than 
hers.  Yet  she  laughed  when  we  asked  if  she  could  see  to 
do  such  fine  work  without  spectacles. 

"Where  could  I  get  spectacles?"  she  said,  her  eyes 
twinkling.  Then  she  stretched  out  her  hand  for  the  spec- 
tacles of  our  old  Mexican  friend  who  had  asked  her  this 
question  for  us ;  took  them,  turned  them  over  curiously, 
tried  to  look  through  them,  shook  her  head,  and  handed 
them  back  to  him  with  a  shrug  and  a  smile.  She  was 
twent}-  years  older  than  he ;  but  her  strong,  young  eyes 
could  not  see  through  his  glasses.  He  recollected  her 
well,  fifty  years  before,  an  active,  handsome  woman,  tak- 
ing care  of  the  sacristy,  washing  the  priests'  laces,  mend- 
ing vestments,  and  filling  various  offices  of  trust  in  the 
mission.  A  sailor  from  a  French  vessel  lying  in  the  harbor 
wished  to  marry  her ;  but  the  friars  would  not  give  their 
consent,  because  the  man  was  a  drunkard  and  dishonest. 
Carmen  was  well  disposed  to  him,  and  much  flattered  by 
his  love-making.  He  used  to  write  letters  to  her,  which 
she  brought  to  this  Mexican  boy  to  read.  It  was  a  droll 


96  CALIFORNIA   AND  OREGON. 

sight  to  see  her  face,  as  he,  now  white-haired  and  look- 
ing fully  as  old  as  she,  reminded  her  of  that  time  and 
of  those  letters,  tapping  her  jocosely  on  her  cheek,  and 
saying  some  things  I  am  sure  he  did  not  quite  literally 
translate  to  us.  She  fairly  colored,  buried  her  face  in  her 
hands  for  a  second,  then  laughed  till  she  shook,  and  an- 
swered in  voluble  Spanish,  of  which  also  I  suspect  we  did 
not  get  a  full  translation.  She  was  the  happiest  Indian 
we  saw ;  indeed,  the  only  one  who  seemed  really  gay  of 
heart  or  even  content. 

A  few  rods  from  the  old  mission  church  of  San  Gabriel, 
in  a  hut  made  of  bundles  of  the  tule  reeds  lashed  to 
sycamore  poles,  as  the  San  Gabriel  Indians  made  them  a 
hundred  years  ago,  live  two  old  Indian  women,  Laura  and 
Benjamina.  Laura  is  one  hundred  and  two  years  old,  Ben- 
jamina  one  hundred  and  seventeen.  The  record  of  their 
baptisms  is  still  to  be  seen  in  the  church  books,  so  there 
can  be  no  dispute  as  to  their  age.  It  seems  not  at  all  in- 
credible, however.  If  I  had  been  told  that  Benjamina  was 
a  three-thousand-year-old  Nile  mummy,  resuscitated  by 
some  mysterious  process,  I  should  not  have  demurred 
much  at  the  tale.  The  first  time  I  saw  them,  the  two 
were  crouching  over  a  fire  on  the  ground,  under  a  sort  of 
booth  porch,  in  front  of  their  hovel.  Laura  was  making 
a  feint  of  grinding  acorn-meal  in  a  stone  bowl ;  Benjamina 
was  raking  the  ashes,  with  her  claw-like  old  fingers,  for 
hot  coals  to  start  the  fire  afresh ;  her  skin  was  like  an 
elephant's,  shrivelled,  black,  hanging  in  folds  and  welts  on 
her  neck  and  breast  and  bony  arms  ;  it  was  not  like  any- 
thing human ;  her  shrunken  eyes,  bright  as  beads,  peered 
out  from  under  thickets  of  coarse  grizzled  gray  hair. 
Laura  wore  a  white  cloth  band  around  her  head,  tied  on 
with  a  strip  of  scarlet  flannel ;  above  that,  a  tafitered  black 
shawl,  which  gave  her  the  look  of  an  aged  imp.  Old  bas- 
kets, old  pots,  old  pans,  old  stone  mortars  and  pestles, 
broken  tiles  and  bricks,  rags,  straw,  boxes,  legless  chairs, 
—  in  short,  all  conceivable  rubbish,  —  were  strewn  about 
or  piled  up  in  the  place,  making  the  weirdest  of  back- 
grounds for  the  aged  crones'  figures.  Inside  the  hut  were 
two  bedsteads  and  a  few  boxes,  baskets,  and  nets  ;  and 
drying  grapes  and  peppers  hung  on  the  walls.  A  few  feet 
away  was  another  hut,  only  a  trifle  better  than  this ;  foui 


MISSION  INDIANS  IN  CALIFORNIA.  97 

generations  were  living  in  the  two.  Benjamina's  step- 
daughter, aged  eighty,  was  a  fine  creature.  AVith  a  white 
band  straight  around  her  forehead  close  to  the  eyebrows 
and  a  gay  plaid  handkerchief  thrown  on  above  it,  falling 
squarely  each  side  of  her  face,  she  looked  like  an  old 
Bedouin  sheik. 

Our  Mexican  friend  remembered  Laura  as  she  was  fifty 
years  ago.  She  was  then,  even  at  fifty-two,  celebrated  as 
j>neof  the  swiftest  runners  and  best  balLplayjersjn  all  the 
"Sanljal>riel  games^ She  was  a  singer,  too,  in  the  choir. 
Coaxing  her  up  on  her  feet,  patting  her  shoulders,  en- 
treating and  caressing  her  as  one  would  a  child,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  persuading  her  to  chant  for  us  the  Lord's  Prayer 
and  part  of  the  litanies,  as  she  had  been  wont  to  do  it  in 
the  old  days.  It  was  a  grotesque  and  incredible  sight. 
The  more  she  stirred  and  sang  and  lifted  her  arms,  the  less 
alive  she  looked.  We  asked  the  step-daughter  if  they 
were  happy  and  wished  to  live.  Laughing,  she  re- 
peated the  question  to  them.  "Oh,  yes,  we  wish  to  live 
forever,"  the}-  replied.  They  were  greatly  terrified,  the 
daughter  said,  when  the  railway  cars  first  ran  through 
San  Gabriel.  They  thought  it  was  the  devil  bringing  fire 
to  burn  up  the  world.  Their  chief  solace  is  tobacco. 
To  beg  it,  Benjarnina  will  creep  about  in  the  village  by  the 
hour,  bent  double  over  her  staff,  tottering  at  every  step. 
They  sit  for  the  most  part  silent,  motionless,  on  the 
ground  ;  their  knees  drawn  up,  their  hands  clasped  over 
them,  their  heads  sunk  on  their  breasts.  In  my  drives  in 
the  San  Gabriel  valley  I  often  saw  them  sitting  thus,  as 
if  they  were  dead.  The  sight  had  an  indescribable  fasci- 
nation. It  seemed  that  to  be  able  to  penetrate  into  the 
recesses  of  their  thoughts  would  be  to  lay  hold  upon 
secrets  as  old  as  the  earth. 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  appanages  of  the  San  Luis 
Rev  Mission,  in  the  time  of  its  prosperity,  was  the  Pala 
valley.  It  lies  about  twenty-five  miles  east  of  San  Luis, 
among  broken  spurs  of  the  Coast  Range,  watered  by  the 
San  Luis  River,  and  also  by  its  own  little  stream,  the  Pala 
Creek.  It  was  always  a  favorite  home  of  the  Indians  ; 
and  at  the  time  of  the  secularization,  over  a  thousand  of 
them  used  to  gather  at  the  weekly  mass  in  its  chapel. 
Now,  on  the  occasional  visits  of  the  San  Juan  Capistrano 


98  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

priest,  to  hold  service  there,  the  dilapidated  little  church 
is  not  half  filled,  and  the  numbers  are  growing  smaller 
each  year.  The  buildings  are  all  in  decay ;  the  stone 
steps  leading  to  the  belfry  have  crumbled  ;  the  walls  of  the 
little  graveyard  are  broken  in  many  places,  the  paling  and 
the  graves  are  thrown  down.  On  the  day  we  were  there, 
a  memorial  service  for  the  dead  was  going  on  in  the  chapel ; 
a  great  square  altar  was  draped  with  black,  decorated  with 
silver  lace  and  ghastly  funereal  emblems ;  candles  were 
burning ;  a  row  of  kneeling  black-shawled  women  were 
holding  lighted  candles  in  their  hands ;  two  old  Indians 
were  chanting  a  Latin  Mass  from  a  tattered  missal  bound  in 
rawhide  ;  the  whole  place  was  full  of  chilly  gloom,  in  sharp 
contrast  to  the  bright  valley  outside,  with  its  sunlight  and 
silence.  This  mass  was  for  the  soul  of  an  old  Indian 
woman  named  Margarita,  sister  of  Manuelito,  a  some- 
what famous  chief  of  several  bands  of  the  San  Luisenos. 
Her  home  was  at  the  Potrero,  —  a  mountain  meadow, 
or  pasture,  as  the  word  signifies,  —  about  ten  miles  from 
Pala,  high  up  the  mountain-side,  and  reached  by  an  almost 
impassable  road.  This  farm  —  or  "saeter"  it  would  be 
called  in  Norway,  —  was  given  to  Margarita  by  the  friars  ; 
and  by  some  exceptional  good  fortune  she  had  a  title 
which,  it  is  said,  can  be  maintained  by  her  heirs.  In 
1871,  in  a  revolt  of  some  of  Manuelito' s  bands,  Margarita 
was  hung  up  by  her  wrists  till  she  was  near  dying,  but 
was  cut  down  at  the  last  minute  and  saved. 

One  of  her  daughters  speaks  a  little  English  ;  and  find- 
ing that  we  had  visited  Pala  solely  on  account  of  our 
interest  in  the  Indians,  she  asked  us  to  come  up  to  the 
Potrero  and  pass  the  night.  She  said  timidly  that  ,they 
had  plenty  of  beds,  and  would  do  all  that  they  knew  h6w  to 
do  to  make  us  comfortable.  One  might  be  in  many  a  dear- 
priced  hotel  less  comfortably  lodged  and  served  than  we 
were  by  these  hospitable  Indians  in  their  mud  house, 
floored  with  earth.  In  my  bedroom  were  three  beds,  all 
neatly  made,  with  lace-trimmed  sheets  and  pillow-cases 
and  patchwork  coverlids.  One  small  square  window  with 
a  wooden  shutter  was  the  only  aperture  for  air,  and  there 
was  no  furniture  except  one  chair  and  a  half-dozen  trunks. 
The  Indians,  like  the  Norwegian  peasants,  keep  their  clothes 
and  various  properties  all  neatly  packed  away  in  boxes  or 


MISSION  INDIANS  IN  CALIFORNIA.  99 

trunks.  As  I  fell  asleep,  I  wondered  if  in  the  morning  I 
should  see  Indian  heads  on  the  pillows  opposite  me ;  the 
whole  place  was  swarming  with  men,  women,  and  babies,, 
and  it  seemed  impossible  for  them  to  spare  so  many  beds ; 
but,  no,  when  I  waked,  there  were  the  beds  still  undisturbed ; 
a  soft-eyed  Indian  girl  was  on  her  knees  rummaging  in 
one  of  the  trunks  ;  seeing  me  awake,  she  murmured  a  few 
words  in  Indian,  which  conveyed  her  apology  as  well  as 
if  I  had  understood  them.  From  the  very  bottom  of  the 
trunk  she  drew  out  a  gilt-edged  china  mug,  darted  out  of 
the  room,  and  came  back  bringing  it  filled  with  fresh 
water.  As  she  set  it  in  the  chair,  in  which  she  had 
already  put  a  tin  pan  of  water  and  a  clean  coarse  towel, 
she  smiled,  and  made  a  sign  that  it  was  for  my  teeth. 
There  was  a  thoughtfulness  and  delicacy  in  the  attention 
which  lifted  it  far  beyond  the  level  of  its  literal  value. 
The  gilt-edged  mug  was  her  most  precious  possession ; 
and,  in  remembering  water  for  the  teeth,  she  had  pro- 
vided me  with  the  last  superfluity  in  the  way  of  white 
man's  comfort  of  which  she  could  think. 

The  food  which  the%y  gave  us  was  a  surprise ;  it  was  far 
better  than  we  had  found  the  night  before  in  the  house  of 
an  Austrian  colonel's  son,  at  Pala.  Chicken,  deliciously 
cooked,  with  rice  and  chile  ;  soda-biscuits  delicately  made  ; 
good  milk  and  butter,  all  laid  in  orderly  fashion,  with  a 
clean  table-cloth,  and  clean,  white  stone  china.  When  I 
said  to  our  hostess  that  I  regretted  very  much  that  they 
had  given  up  their  beds  in  my  room,  that  they  ought  not 
to  have  done  it,  she  answered  me  with  a  wave  of  her  hand 
that  "  it  was  nothing ;  the}'  hoped  I  had  slept  well ;  that 
they  had  plenty  of  other  beds."  The  hospitable  lie  did 
not  deceive  me,  for  by  examination  I  had  convinced  my- 
self  that  the  greater  part  of  the  family  must  have  slept  on 
the  bare  earth  in  the  kitchen.  They  would  not  have  taken 
pa}'  for  our  lodging,  except  that  they  had  just  been  forced 
to  give  so  much  for  the  mass  for  Margarita's  soul,  and  it 
had  been  hard  for  them  to  raise  the  money.  Twelve  dol- 
lars the  priest  had  charged  for  the  mass  ;  and  in  addition 
they  had  to  pay  for  the  candles,  silver  lace,  black  cloth, 
etc..  nearly  as  much  more.  They  had  earnestly  desired  to 
have  the  mass  said  at  the  Potrero,  but  the  priest  would 
not  come  up  there  for  less  than  twenty  dollars,  and  that, 


100  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGOX. 

Antonia  said,  with  a  sigh,  they  could  not  possibly  pay. 
Wo  left  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning ;  Margarita's  hus- 
band, the  -•  capitan,"  riding  off  with  us  to  see  us  safe  on 
our  way.  When  we  had  passed  the  worst  gullies  and 
boulders,  he  whirled  his  horse,  lifted  his  ragged  old  som- 
brero with  the  grace  of  a  cavalier,  smiled,  wished  us  good- 
day  and  good  luck,  and  was  out  of  sight  in  a  second,  his 
little  wild  pony  galloping  up  the  rough  trail  as  if  it  were 
as  smooth  as  a  race-course. 

Between  the  Potrero  and  Pala  are  two  Indian  villages, 
the  Rincon  and  Pauma.  The  Rincon  is  at  the  head  of 
the  valley,  snugged  up  against  the  mountains,  as  its  name 
signifies,  in  a  "  corner."  Here  were  fences,  irrigating 
ditches,  fields  of  barley,  wheat,  ha}-,  and  peas ;  a  little 
herd  of  horses  and  cows  grazing,  and  several  flocks 
of  sheep.  The  men  were  all  away  sheep-shearing ;  the 
women  were  at  work  in  the  fields,  some  hoeing,  some 
clearing  out  the  irrigating  ditches,  and  all  the  old  women 
plaiting  baskets.  These  Rincon  Indians,  we  were  told,  had 
refused  a  school  offered  them  by  the  Government ;  they 
said  they  would  accept  nothing  at  the  hands  of  the  Gov- 
ernment until  it  gave  them  a  title  to  their  lands. 

The  most  picturesque  of  all  the  Mission  Indians'  hiding- 
places  which  we  saw  was  that  on  the  Carmel  River,  a  few 
miles  from  the  San  Carlos  Mission.  Except  by  help  of  a 
guide  it  cannot  be  found.  A  faint  trail  turning  off  from 
the  road  in  the  river-bottom  leads  down  to  the  river's  edge. 
You  follow  it  into  the  river  and  across,  supposing  it  a  ford. 
On  the  opposite  bank  there  is  no  trail,  no  sign  of  one. 
Whether  it  is  that  the  Indians  purposely  always  go  ashore 
at  different  points  of  the  bank,  so  as  to  leave  no  trail ;  or 
whether  they  so  seldom  go  out,  except  on  foot,  that  the 
trail  has  faded  away,  I  do  not  know.  But  certainly,  if  we 
had  had  no  guide,  we  should  have  turned  back{  sure  we 
^ere  wrong.  A  few  rods  up  from  the  river-bank,  a  stealth}* 
narrow  footpath  appeared  ;  through  willow  copses,  sunk 
in  meadow  grasses,  across  shingl}-  bits  of  alder-walk-d 
beach  it  creeps,  till  it  comes  out  in  a  lovely  spot,  —  half 
basin,  half  rocky  knoll,  —  where,  tucked  away  in  nooks 
and  hollows,  are  the  little  Indian  houses,  eight  or  ten 
of  them,  some  of  adobe,  some  of  the  tule-reeds :  small 
patches  of  corn,  barley,  potatoes,  and  hay  ;  and  each  little 


MISSION  INDIANS  IN  CALIFORNIA.  101 

front  yard  fenced  in  by  palings,  with  roses,  sweet-peas, 
poppies,  and  mignonette  growing  inside.  In  the  first 
house  we  reached,  a 'woman  was  living  alone.  She  was  so 
alarmed  at  the  sight  of  us  that  she  shook.  There  could 
not  be  a  more  pitiful  comment  on  the  state  of  perpetual 
distrust  and  alarm  in  which  the  poor  creatures  live,  than 
this  woman's  face  and  behavior.  We  tried  in  vain  to  re- 
assure her ;  we  bought  all  the  lace  she  had  to  sell,  chatted 
with  her  about  it,  and  asked  her  to  show  us  how  it  was 
made.  Even  then  she  was  so  terrified  that  although  she 
willingly  took  down  her  lace-frame  to  sewa  few,  stitches  for 
us  to  see,  her  hands  still  trembled.  In  another  house  we 
found  an  old  woman  evidently  past  eight}-,  without  glasses 
working  button-holes  in  fine  thread.  Her  daughter-in- 
law —  a  beautiful  half-breed,  with  a  still  more  beautiful 
baby  in  her  arms  —  asked  the  old  woman,  for  us,  how  old 
she  was.  She  laughed  merrily  at  the  silly  question.  "  She 
never  thought  about  it,"  she  said  ;  "  it  was  written  down 
once  in  a  book  at  the  Mission,  but  the  book  was  lost." 

There  was  not  a  man  in  the  village.  The}7  were  all 
away  at  work,  farming  or  fishing.  This  little  handful  of 
people  are  living  on  land  to  which  they  have  no  shadow  of 
title,  and  from  which  they  may  be  driven  any  day,  —  these 
Carmel  Mission  lands  having  been  rented  out,  by  their 
present  owner,  in  great  dairy  farms.  The  parish  priest 
of  Monterey  told  me  much  of  the  pitiable  condition  of 
these  remnants  of  the  San  Carlos  Indians.  He  can  do 
little  or  nothing  for  them,  though  their  condition  makes 
his  heart  ache  daily.  In  that  half-foreign  English  which 
is  always  so  much  more  eloquent  a  language  than  the 
English-speaking  peoples  use,  he  said:  "They  have  their 
homes  there  only  by  the  patience  of  the  thief;  it  may  be 
that  the  patience  do  not  last  to-morrow."  The  phrase  is 
worth  preserving :  it  embodies  so  much  history,  —  history 
I  of  two  races. 

In  Mr.  Wilson's  report  are  many  eloquent  and  strong 
paragraphs,  bearing  on  the  question  of  the  Indians'  right 
to  the  lands  they  had  under  cultivation  at  the  time  of  the 
secularization.  He  says  :  — 

_  "  It  is  not  natural  rights  T  speak  of,  nor  merely  possessory 
rights,  but  rights  acquired  and  contracts  made, — acquired  and 


102  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

made  when  the  laws  of  the  Indies  had  force  here,  and  never  as- 
sailed by  any  laws  or  executive  acts  since,  till  1834  and  1846; 
and  impregnable  to  these.  ...  No  past  maladministration  of 
laws  can  be  suffered  to  destroy  their  true  intent,  while  the  vic- 
tims of  the  maladministration  live  to  complain,  and  the  rewards 
of  wrong  have  not  been  consumed." 

Of  Mr.  Wilson's  report  in  1852,  of  Mr.  Ames's  report 
in  1873,  and  of  the  various  other  reports  called  for  by  the 
Government  from  time  to  time,  nothing  came,  except  the 
occasional  setting  off  of  reservations  by  executive  orders, 
which,  if  the  lands  reserved  were  worth  anything,  were 
speedily  revoked  at  the  bidding  of  California  politicians. 
There  are  still  some  reservations  left,  chiefly  of  desert  and 
mountainous  lands,  which  nobody  wants,  and  on  which 
the  Indians  could  not  live. 

The  last  report  made  to  the  Indian  Bureau  by  their  pres- 
ent agent  closes  in  the  following  words  :  — 

"The  necessity  of  providing  suitable  lands  for  them  in  the 
form  of  one  or  more  reservations  has  been  pressed  on  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Department  in  my  former  reports;  and  I  now,  for  the 
third  and  perhaps  the  last  time,  emphasize  that  necessity  by  say- 
ing that  whether  Government  will  immediately  heed  the  pleas 
that  have  been  made  in  behalf  of  these  people  or  not,  it  must 
sooner  or  later  deal  with  this  question  in  a  practical  way,  or 
else  see  a  population  of  over  three  thousand  Indians  become 
homeless  wanderers  in  a  desert  region." 

I  have  shown  a  few  glimpses  of  the  homes,  of  the  in- 
dustry, the  patience,  the  long-suffering  of  the  people  who 
are  in  this  immediate  danger  of  being  driven  out  from 
their  last  footholds  of  refuge,  "  homeless  wanderers  in 
a  desert." 

If  the  United  States  Government  does  not  take  steps 
to  avert  this  danger,  to  give  them  lands  and  protect  them 
in  their  rights,  the  chapter  of  the  history  of  the  Mission 
Indians  will  be  the  blackest  one  in  the  black  record  of  our 
dealings  with  the  Indian  race. 

It  must  be  done  speedil}'  if  at  all,  for  there  is  only  a 
small  remnant  left  to  be  saved.  These  are  in  their  present 
homes  "  only  on  the  patience  of  the  thief;  and  it  may  be 
that  the  patience  do  not  last  to-morrow." 


ECHOES  IN  THE  CITY   OF   THE  ANGELS. 

THE  tale  of  the  founding  of  the  city  of  Los  Angeles  is  a 
tale  for  verse  rather  than  for  prose.  It  reads  like  a  page 
out  of  some  new  "  Earthly  Paradise,"  and  would  fit  well 
into  song  such  as  William  Morris  has  sung. 

It  is  only  a  hundred  years  old,  however,  and  that  is  not 
time  enough  for  such  song  to  simmer.  It  will  come  later, 
with  the  perfume  of  century-long  summers  added  to  its 
flavor.  Summers  century-long  ?  One  might  say  a  stronger 
thing  than  that  of  them,  seeing  that  their  blossoming  never 
stops,  year  in  nor  year  out,  and  will  endure  as  long  as  the 
visible  frame  of  the  earth. 

The  twelve  devout  Spanish  soldiers  who  founded  the 
city  named  it  at  their  leisure  with  a  long  name,  musical  as 
a  chime  of  bells.  It  answered  well  enough,  no  doubt,  for 
the  first  fifty  years  of  the  city's  life,  during  which  not 
a  municipal  record  of  any  sort  or  kind  was  written,  — 
"  Nuestra  Seiiora  Reina  de  los  Angeles,"  "  Our  Lad}-  the 
Queen  of  the  Angels  ;  "  and  her  portrait  made  a  goodly 
companion  flag,  unfurled  alwa}*s  b}~  the  side  of  the  flag  of 
Spain. 

There  is  a  legend,  that  sounds  older  than  it  is,  of  the 
ceremonies  with  which  the  soldiers  took  possession  of  their 
new  home.  They  were  no  longer  young.  The}-  had 
fought  for  Spain  in  many  parts  of  the  Old  World,  and  fol- 
lowed her  uncertain  fortunes  to  the  Xew.  Ten  years  some 
of  them  had  been  faithfully  serving  Church  and  King  in 
sight  of  these  fair  lands,  for  which  they  hankered,  and  with 
reason. 

In  those  days  the  soft,  rolling,  treeless  hills  and  valleys, 
between  which  the  Los  Angeles  River  now  takes  its  shilly- 


11)4  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

shallying  course  seaward,  were  forest  slopes  and  meadows, 
with  lakes  great  uud  small.  This  abundance  of  trees, 
with  shining  waters  playing  among  them,  added  to  the 
limitless  bloom  of  the  plains  and  the  splendor  of  the 
snow-topped  mountains,  must  have  made  the  whole  region 
indeed  a  paradise. 

Navarro,  Villavicencia,  Rodriguez,  Quintero,  Moreno, 
Lara,  Banegas,  Rosas,  and  Canero,  these  were  their 
names :  happy  soldiers  all,  honored  of  their  king,  and  dis- 
charged with  so  royal  a  gift  of  lands  thus  fair. 

Looking  out  across  the  Los  Angeles  hills  and  meadows 
to-day,  one  easily  lives  over  again  the  joy  they  must  have 
felt.  "  Twenty-three  young  children  there  were  in  the  band, 
poor  little  waifs  of  camp  and  march.  What  a  'kbraw 
flitting  "  was  it  for  them,  away  from  the  drum-beat  forever 
into  the  shelter  of  their  own  sunny  home !  The  legend 
says  not  a  word  of  the  mothers,  except  that  there  were 
eleven  of  them,  and  in  the  procession  the}*  walked  with 
their  children  behind  the  men.  Doubtless  the}-  rejoiced 
the  most. 

The  Fathers  from  the  San  Gabriel  Mission  were  there, 
with  many  Indian  neophytes,  and  Don  Felipe,  the  military 
governor,  with  his  showy  guard  of  soldiers. 

The  priests  and  neophytes  chanted.  The  Cross  was  set 
np,  the  flag  of  Spain  and  the  banner  of  Our  Lady  the 
Queen  of  the  Angels  unfurled,  and  the  new  town  marked 
out  around  a  square,  a  little  to  the  north  of  the  present 
plaza  of  Los  Angeles. 

If  communities,  as  well  as  individuals,  are  happy  when 
history  finds  nothing  to  record  of  them,  the  city  of  the 
Queen  of  the  Angels  must  have  been  a  happy  spot  during 
the  first  fifty  years  of  its  life  ;  for  not  a  written  record  of 
the  period  remains,  not  even  a  record  of  grants  of  land. 
The  kind  of  grant  that  these  worthy  Spanish  soldiers  and 
their  sons  contented  themselves  with,  however,  hardly  de- 
served recording, — in  fact,  was  not  a  grant  at  all,  since 
its  continuance  depended  entirely  on  the  care  a  man  took 
of  his  house  and  the  improvement  he  put  on  his  land.  If 
he  left  his  house  unoccupied,  or  let  it  fall  out  of  repair,  if 
he  left  a  field  uncultivated  for  two  years,  any  neighbor 
who  saw  fit  might  denounce  him,  and  by  so  doing  ac- 
quire a  right  to  the  property.  This  sounds  incredible, 


ECHOES  IN  THE   CITY  OF  THE  ANGELS.      105 

but  all  the  historical  accounts  of  the  time  agree  on  the 

point.     They  say,  — 

"  The  granting  authorities  could,  and  were  by  law  required, 
upon  a  proper  showing  of  the  abandonment,  to  grant  the  prop- 
erty to  the  informant,  who  then  acquired  the  same  and  no  better 
rights  than  those  possessed  by  his  predecessor." 

This  was  a  premium  indeed  on  staying  at  home  and 
minding  one's  business,  —  a  premium  which  amounted  to 
coercion.  One  would  think  that  there  must  have  been  left 
from  those  days  teeming  records  of  alienated  estates, 
shifted  tenures,  and  angry  feuds  between  neighbor  and 
neighbor.  But  no  evidence  remains  of  such  strifes.  Life 
was  too  simple,  and  the  people  were  too  ignorant. 

Their  houses  were  little  more  than  hovels,  built  of  mud, 
eight  feet  high,  with  flat  roofs  made  of  reeds  and  asphal- 
tum.  Their  fields,  with  slight  cultivation,  produced  all 
they  needed ;  and  if  anything  lacked,  the  rich  vineyards, 
wheat- fields,  and  orchards  of  the  San  Gabriel  Mission  lay 
only  twelve  miles  awa}'.  These  vineyards,  orchards,  and 
granaries,  so  near  at  hand,  must  have  been  sore  temptation 
to  idleness.  Each  head  of  a  family  had  been  presented, 
by  the  paternal  Spanish  king,  with  "two  oxen,  two  mules, 
two  mares,  two  sheep,  two  goats,  two  cows,  one  calf,  an 
ass,  and  one  hoe."  For  these  they  were  to  pay  in  such 
small  instalments  as  they  were  able  to  spare  out  of  their 
pay  and  rations,  which  were  still  continued  by  the  gener- 
ous king. 

In  a  climate  in  which  flowers  blossom  winter  and  sum- 
mer alike,  man  may  bask  in  sun  all  the  year  round  if  he 
chooses.  Why,  then,  should  those  happy  Spanish  soldiers 
work?  Even  the  king  had  thought  it  unnecessary,  it 
seems,  to  give  them  any  implements  of  labor  except  "  one 
hoe."  What  could  a  family  do,  in  the  way  of  work,  with 
"  one  hoe  "?  Evidently,  they  did  not  work,  neither  they, 
nor  their  sons,  nor  their  so.ns'  sons  after  them  ;  for,  half 
a  century  later,  they  were  still  living  a  life  of  almost  in- 
credible ignorance,  redeemed  only  by  its  simplicity  and 
childlike  adherence  to  the  old  religious  observances. 

Many  of  those  were  beautiful.  As  late  as  1830  it  was 
the  custom  throughout  the  town,  in  all  the  families  of  the 


106  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

early  settlers,  for  the  oldest  member  of  the  family  —  often- 
est  it  was  a  grandfather  or  grandmother  —  to  rise  every 
morning  at  the  rising  of  the  morning  star,  and  at  once  to 
strike  up  a  hymn.  At  the  first  note  every  person  in  the 
house  would  rise,  or  sit  up  in  bed  and  join  in  the  song. 
From  house  to  house,  street  to  street,  the  singing  spread ; 
and  the  volume  of  musical  sound  swelled,  until  it  was  as 
if  the  whole  town  sang. 

The  hymns  were  usually  invocations  to  the  Virgin,  to 
Jesus,  or  to  some  saint.  The  opening  line  of  many  of 
them  was,  — 

"  Rejoice,  O  Mother  of  God." 

A  manuscript  cop}'  of  one  of  these  old  morning  songs  I 
have  seen,  and  had  the  good  fortune  to  win  a  literal  trans- 
lation of  part  of  it,  in  the  soft,  Spanish-voiced,  broken 
English,  so  pleasant  to  hear.  The  first  stanza  is  the  cho- 
rus, and  was  repeated  after  each  of  the  others :  — 

"Come,  O  sinners, 

Come,  and  we  will  sing 
Tender  hymns 
To  our  refuge. 

"  Singers  at  dawn, 

From  the  heavens  above, 
People  all  regions ; 
Gladly  we  too  sing. 

"  Singing  harmoniously, 

Saying  to  Mary, 
'  O  beautiful  Queen, 
Princess  of  Heaven ! 

" '  Your  beautiful  head 

Crowned  we  see ; 
The  stars  are  adorning 
Your  beautiful  hair ; 

"  '  Your  eyebrows  are  arched, 

Your  forehead  serene ; 
Your  face  turned  always 
Looks  toward  God ; 

"  '  Your  eyes'  radiance 

Is  like  beautiful  stars ; 
Like  a  white  dove, 

You  are  true  to  your  spouse.' " 


ECHOES  IN  THE   CITY  OF  THE  ANGELS.     107 

Each  of  these  stanzas  was  sung  first  alone  by  the  aged 
leader  of  the  family  choir.  Then  the  rest  repeated  it ; 
then  all  joined  in  the  chorus. 

It  is  said  that  there  are  still  to  be  found,  in  lonely  coun- 
try regions  in  California,  Mexican  homes  in  which  these 
sweet  and  hoi}*  "  songs  before  sunrise  "  are  sung. 

Looking  forward  to  death,  the  greatest  anxiety  of  these 
simple  souls  was  to  provide  themselves  with  a  priest's  cast- 
off  robe  to  be  buried  in.  These  were  begged  or  bought  as 
the  greatest  of  treasures  ;  kept  in  sight,  or  always  at  hand, 
to  remind  them  of  approaching  death.  When  their  last 
hour  drew  near,  this  robe  was  flung  over  their  breasts, 
and  they  died  happ}*,  their  stiffening  fingers  grasping  its 
folds.  The  dead  body  was  wrapped  in  it,  and  laid  on  the 
mud  floor  of  the  house,  a  stone  being  placed  under  the 
head  to  raise  it  a  few  inches.  Thus  the  body  must  lie  till 
the  time  of  burial.  Around  it,  day  and  night,  squatted, 
praying  and  singing,  friends  who  wished  not  only  to  show 
their  affection  for  the  deceased,  but  to  win  indulgences  for 
themselves ;  every  prayer  said  thus,  by  the  side  of  a 
corpse,  having  a  special  and  specified  value.' 

A  strange  demarkation  between  the  sexes  was  enforced 
in  these  ceremonies.  If  it  were  a  woman  who  lay  dead, 
only  women  might  kneel  and  pray  and  watch  with  her 
body  ;  if  a  man,  the  circle  of  watchers  must  be  exclusively 
of  men. 

A  rough  box,  of  boards  nailed  together,  was  the  coffin. 
The  body,  rolled  in  the  old  robe  whose  virtues  had  so  com- 
forted its  last  conscious  moments,  was  carried  to  the  grave 
on  a  board,  in  the  centre  of  a  procession  of  friends  chant- 
ing and  singing.  Not  until  the  last  moment  was  it  laid  in 
the  box. 

The  first  attempts  to  introduce  more  civilized  forms  of 
burial  met  with  opposition,  and  it  was  only  by  slow  degrees 
that  changes  were  wrought.  A  Frenchman,  who  had  come 
Ifrom  France  to  Los  Angeles,  by  way  of  the  Sandwich  Isl- 
iands,  bringing  a  store  of  sacred  ornaments  and  trinkets, 
and  had  grown  rich  by  sale  of  them  to  the  devout,  owned 
a  spring  wagon,  the  only  one  in  the  country.  By  dint  of 
entreaty,  the  people  were  finally  prevailed  upon  to  allow 
their  dead  to  be  carried  in  this  wagon  to  the  burial-place. 
For  a  long  time,  however,  they  refused  to  have  horses  put 


108  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

to  the  wagon,  but  drew  it  by  band  all  the  wa}* ;  women 
drawing  women,  and  men  drawing  men,  with  the  same 
,  scrupulous  partition  of  the  sexes  as  in  the  earlier  ceremo- 
nies. The  picture  must  have  been  a  strange  one,  and  not 
without  pathos, — the  wagon,  wound  and  draped  with 
black  and  white,  drawn  up  and  down  the  steep  hills  by 
the  band  of  silent  mourners. 

The  next  innovation  was  the  introduction  of  stately 
catafalques  for  the  dead  to  repose  on,  either  in  house  or 
church,  during  the  interval  between  their  death  and  burial. 
There  had  been  brought  into  the  town  a  few  old-fashioned, 
high-post,  canopied  bedsteads,  and  from  these  the  first 
catafalques  were  made.  Gilded,  decorated  with  gold  and 
silver  lace,  and  hung  with  white  and  black  draperies,  they 
made  a  by  no  means  insignificant  show,  which  doubtless 
went  far  to  reconcile  people's  minds  to  the  new  methods. 

In  1838  there  was  a  memorable  funeral  of  a  woman  over 
a  hundred  years  old.  Fourteen  old  women  watched  with 
her  body,  which  lay  stretched  on  the  floor,  in  the  ancient 
fashion,  with  only  a  stone  beneath  the  head.  The  young- 
est of  these  watchers  was  eighty-five.  One  of  them, 
Tomasa  Camera  by  name,  was  herself  over  a  hundred 
years  old.  Tomasa  was  infirm  of  foot ;  so  they  propped 
her  with  pillows  in  a  little  cart,  and  drew  her  to  the  house 
that  she  might  not  miss  of  the  occasion.  All  night  long, 
the  fourteen  squatted  or  sat  on  rawhides  spread  on  the 
floor,  and  sang  and  prayed  and  smoked :  as  fine  a  wake 
as  was  ever  seen.  They  smoked  cigarettes,  which  they 
rolled  on  the  spot,  out  of  corn-husks  slit  fine  for  the  pur- 
pose, there  being  at  that  day  in  Los  Angeles  no  paper  fit 
for  cigarettes. 

Outside  this  body-guard  of  aged  women  knelt  a  circle  of 
friends  and  relatives,  also  chanting,  praying,  and  smoking. 
In  this  outer  circle  any  one  might  come  and  go  at  pleas- 
ure ;  but  into  the  inner  ring  of  the  watching  none  must 
come,  and  none  must  go  out  of  it  till  the  night  was  spent. 

With  the  beginning  of  the  prosperity  of  the  City  of  the 
Angels,  came  the  end  of  its  primeval  peace.  Spanish 
viceroys,  Mexican  alcaldes  and  governors.  United  States 
commanders,  naval  and  military,  followed  on  eaeli  other's 
heels,  with  or  without  frays,  ruling  California  through  a 
succession  of  tumultuous  years.  Greedy  traders  from  all 


ECHOES  IN  THE   CITY  OF  THE  ANGELS.      109 

parts  of  the  world  added  their  rivalries  and  interventions 
to  the  civil  and  nrilitar}'  disputation.  In  the  general  an- 
archy and  confusion,  tfre  peaceful  and  peace-loving  Cath- 
olic Fathers  were  robbed  of  their  lands,  their  converts  were 
scattered,  their  industries  broken  up.  Nowhere  were  these 
uncomfortable  years  more  uncomfortable  than  in  Los  An- 
geles. Revolts,  occupations,  surrenders,  retakings,  and 
resurrenders  kept  the  little  town  in  perpetual  ferment. 
Disorders  were  the  order  of  the  day  and  of  the  night,  in 
small  matters  as  well  as  in  great. 

The  California!)  fought  as  impetuously  for  his  old  way 
of  dancing  as  for  his  political  allegiance.  There  are  comi- 
cal traditions  of  the  men's  determination  never  to  wear 
long  trousers  to  dances  ;  nor  to  permit  dances  to  be  held 
in  houses  or  halls,  it  having  been  the  practice  always  to 
give  them  in  outdoor  booths  or  bowers,  with  lattice-work 
walls  of  sycamore  poles  lashed  together  by  thongs  of 
rawhide. 

Outside  these  booths  the  men  sat  on  their  horses  looking 
in  at  the  dancing,  which  was  chiefly  done  by  the  women. 
An  old  man  standing  in  the  centre  of  the  enclosure  directed 
the  dances.  Stopping  in  front  of  the  girl  whom  he  wished 
to  have  join  the  set,  he  clapped  his  hands.  She  then  rose 
and  .took  her  place  on  the  floor ;  if  she  could  not  dance,  or 
wished  to  decline,  she  made  a  low  bow  and  resumed  her 
seat. 

To  look  in  on  all  this  was  great  sport.  Sometimes,  un- 
able to  resist  the  spell,  a  man  would  fling  himself  off  his 
horse,  dash  into  the  enclosure,  seize  a  girl  by  the  waist, 
whirl  around  with  her  through  one  dance,  then  out  again 
and  into  the  saddle,  where  he  sat,  proudty  aware  of  his 
vantage.  The  decorations  of  masculine  attire  at  this  time 
were  such  as  to  make  riding  a  fine  show.  Around  the 
crown  of  the  broad-brimmed  sombrero  was  twisted  a  coil 
of  gold  or  silver  cord  ;  over  the  shoulders  was  flung,  with 
ostentatious  carelessness,  a  short  cloak  of  velvet  or  bro- 
cade :  the  waistcoats  were  embroidered  in  gold,  silver,  or 
ga}-  colors  ;  so  also  were  the  knee-breeches,  leggings,  and 
"  stockings.  Long  silken  garters,  with  ornamented  tassels 
at  the  ends,  were  wound  round  and  round  to  hold  the 
stockings  in  place.  Even  the  cumbrous  wooden  stirrups 
were  carved  in  elaborate  designs.  No  wonder  that  men 


110  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

accustomed  to  such  braveries  as  these  saw  ignominy  in  the 
plain  American  trousers. 

They  seem  to  have  been  a  variety  of  Centaur,  these 
early  California!!  men.  They  were  seldom  off  their  horses 
except  to  eat  and  sleep.  They  mounted,  with  jingling  sil- 
ver spur  and  glittering  bridle,  for  the  shortest  distances, 
even  to  cross  a  plaza.  They  paid  long  visits  on  horseback, 
without  dismounting.  Clattering  up  to  the  window  or 
door-sill,  halting,  throwing  one  knee  over  the  crupper,  the 
reins  lying  loose,  the}'  sat  at  ease,  far  more  at  ease  than 
in  a  house.  Only  at  church,  where  the  separation  was  in- 
evitable, would  they  be  parted  from  their  horses.  They 
turned  the  near  neighborhood  of  a  church  on  Sunday  into 
a  sort  of  picket-ground,  or  horse- trainers'  yard,  full  of 
horse-posts  and  horses  ;  and  the  scene  was  far  more  like  a 
horse-fair  than  like  an  occasion  of  holy  observance.  There 
seems  to  have  been  a  curious  mixture  of  reverence  and 
irreverence  in  their  natures.  They  confessed  sins  and  un- 
derwent penances  with  the  simplicity  of  children ;  but 
when,  in  1821,  the  Church  issued  an  edict  against  that 
"  eseandalosisima  "  dance,  the  waltz,  declaring  that  who- 
ever dared  to  dance  it  should  be  excommunicated,  the 
merry  sinners  waltzed  on  only  the  harder  and  faster,  and 
laughed  in  their  priests'  faces.  And  when  the  advocates 
of  decorum,  good  order,  and  indoor  dancing  gave  their 
first  ball  in  a  public  hall  in  Los  Angeles,  the  same  merry 
outdoor  party  broke  every  window  and  door  in  the  build- 
ing, and  put  a  stop  to  the  festivity.  They  persisted  in 
taking  this  same  summary  vengeance  on  occasion  after 
occasion,  until,  finally,  any  person  wishing  to  give  a  ball 
in  his  own  house  was  forced  to  surround  the  house  by  a 
cordon  of  police  to  protect  it. 

The  City  of  the  Angels  is  a  prosperous  city  now.  It  has 
business  thoroughfares,  blocks  of  fine  stone  buildings, 
hotels,  shops,  banks,  and  is  growing  daily.  Its  outlying 
regions  are  a  great  circuit  of  gardens,  orchards,  vinej'ards, 
and  corn-fields,  and  its  suburbs  are  fast  filling  up  with 
houses  of  a  showy  though  cheap  architecture.  But  it  has 
not  yet  shaken  off  its  past.  A  certain  indefinable,  deli- 
cious aroma  from  the  old,  ignorant,  picturesque  times  lin- 
gers still,  not  only  in  byways  and  corners,  but  in  the  very 
centres  of  its  newest  activities. 


ECHOES  IN   THE   CITY  OF  THE  ANGELS.      Ill 

Mexican  women,  their  heads  wrapped  in  black  shawls, 
and  their  bright  eyes  peering  out  between  the  close- 
gathered  folds,  glide  about  everywhere  ;  the  soft  Spanish 
speech  is  continually  heard ;  long-robed  priests  hurry  to 
and  fro ;  and  at  each  dawn  ancient,  jangling  bells  from 
the  Church  of  the  Lady  of  the  Angels  ring  out  the  night 
and  in  the  da}-.  Venders  of  strange  commodities  drive  in 
stranger  vehicles  up  and  down  the  streets :  antiquated 
carts  piled  high  with  oranges,  their  golden  opulence  con- 
trasting weirdly  with  the  shabbiness  of  their  surroundings 
and  the  evident  poverty  of  their  owner  ;  close  following  on 
the  gold  of  one  of  these,  one  has  sometimes  the  luck  to  see 
another  cart,  still  more  antiquated  and  rickety,  piled  high 
with  something  —  he  cannot  imagine  what  —  terra-cotta 
red  in  grotesque  shapes  ;  it  is  fuel,  —  the  same  sort  which 
Villavicencia,  Quintero,  and  the  rest  probably  burned, 
when  thev  burned  any,  a  hundred  years  ago.  It  is  the 
roots  and  root-shoots  of  inauzauita  and  other  shrubs.  The 
colors  are  superb,  —  terra-cotta  reds,  shading  up  to  flesh 
pink,  and  down  to  dark  mahogany ;  but  the  forms  are 
grotesque  beyond  comparison  :  twists,  querls,  contortions, 
a  boxful  of  them  is  an  uncomfortable  presence  in  one's 
room,  and  putting  them  on  the  fire  is  like  cremating  the 
vertebrae  and  double  teeth  of  colossal  monsters  of  the 
Pterodactyl  period. 

The  present  plaza  of  the  city  is  near  the  original  plaza 
marked  out  at  the  time  of  the  first  settlement ;  the  low 
adobe  house  of  one  of  the  early  governors  stands  yet  on 
its  east  side,  and  is  still  a  habitable  building. 

The  plaza  is  a  dusty  and  dismal  little  place,  with  a  par- 
simonious fountain  in  the  centre,  surrounded  by  spokes  of 
thin  turf,  and  walled  at  its  outer  circumference  by  a  row 
of  tall  Monterey  cypresses,  shorn  and  clipped  into  the 
shape  of  huge  croquettes  or  brad-awls  standing  broad  end 
down.  At  all  hours  of  the  da}'  idle  boys  and  still  idler 
men  are  to  be  seen  basking  on  the  fountain's  stone  rim,  or 
lying,  face  down,  heels  in  air,  in  the  triangles  of  shade 
made  by  the  cypress  croquettes.  There  is  in  Los  Angeles 
much  of  this  ancient  and  ingenious  style  of  shearing  and 
compressing  foliage  into  unnatural  and  distorted  shapes. 
It  conies,  no  doubt,  of  lingering  reverence  for  the  tradi- 
tions of  what  was  thought  beautiful  in  Spain  centuries 


112  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

ago ;  and  it  gives  to  the  town  a  certain  quaint  and  for- 
eign look,  in  admirable  keeping  with  its  irregular  levels, 
zigzag,  toppling  precipices,  and  houses  in  tiers  one  above 
another. 

One  comes  sometimes  abruptly  on  a  picture  which  seems 
bewilderingly  un-American,  of  a  precipice  wall  covered 
with  bird-cage  cottages,  the  little,  paling-walled  yard  of 
one  jutting  out  in  a  line  with  the  chirnne^y-tops  of  the  next 
one  below,  and  so  on  down  to  the  street  at  the  base  of  the 
hill.  Wooden  staircases  and  bits  of  terrace  link  and  loop 
the  odd  little  perches  together  ;  bright  green  pepper-trees, 
sometimes  tall  enough  to  shade  two  or  three  tiers  of  roofs, 
give  a  graceful  plumed  draping  at  the  sides,  and  some  of 
the  steep  fronts  are  covered  with  bloom,  in  solid  curtains, 
of  geranium,  sweet  alyssum,  heliotrope,  and  ivy.  These 
terraced  eyries  are  not  the  homes  of  the  rich :  the  houses 
are  lilliputian  in  size,  and  of  cheap  qualit}' ;  but  they  do 
more  for  the  picturesqueness  of  the  city  than  all  the  large, 
fine,  and  costly  houses  put  together. 

Moreover,  they  are  the  only  houses  that  command  the 
situation,  possess  distance  and  a  horizon.  From  some  of 
these  little  ten-b3'-twelve  flower-beds  of  homes  is  a  stretch 
of  view  which  makes  each  hour  of  the  day  a  succession  of 
changing  splendors,  —  the  snowy  peaks  of  San  Bernardino 
and  San  Jacinto  in  the  east  and  south  ;  to  the  west,  vast . 
open  country,  billowy  green  with  vineyard  and  orchard ; 
beyond  this,  in  clear  weather,  shining  glints  and  threads 
of  ocean,  and  again  beyond,  in  the  farthest  outing,  hill- 
crowned  islands,  misty  blue  against  the  sky.  No  one 
knows  Los  Angeles  who  does  not  climb  to  these  sunny 
outlying  heights,  and  roam  and  linger  on  them  many  a 
day.  Nor,  even  thus  lingering,  will  any  one  ever  know 
more  of  Los  Angeles  than  its  lovely  outward  semblances 
and  mysterious  suggestions,  unless  he  have  the  good  for- 
tune to  win  past  the  barrier  of  proud,  sensitive,  tender 
reserve,  behind  which  is  hid  the  life  of  the  few  remaining 
survivors  of  the  old  Spanish  and  Mexican  regime. 

Once  past  this,  he  gets  glimpses  of  the  same  stintless 
hospitalit}'  and  immeasurable  courtesy  which  gave  to  the 
old  Franciscan  establishments  a  world-wide  fame,  and  to 
the  society  whose  tone  and  customs  they  created  an  at- 
mosphere of  simple-hearted  joyousness  and  generosity 


ECHOES  IN  THE  CITY  OF  THE  ANGELS.      113 

never  known  by  an}'  other  communities  on  the  American 
continent. 

In  houses  whose  doors  seldom  open  to  English-speaking 
people,  there  are  rooms  full  of  relics  of  that  fast-vanishing 
past.  Strongholds  also  of  a  religious  faith,  almost  as  ob- 
solete, in  its  sort  and  degree,  as  are  the  garments  of  the 
aged  creatures  who  are  peacefully  resting  their  last  days 
on  its  support. 

In  one  of  these  houses,  in  a  poverty-stricken  but  gayly 
decorated  little  bedroom,  hangs  a  small  oil-painting,  a 
portrait  of  Saint  Francis  de  Paula.  It  was  brought  from 
Mexico,  fifty-five  years  ago,  by  the  woman  who  still  owns 
it,  and  has  knelt  before  it  and  prayed  to  it  every  dav 
of  the  fifty-five  years.  Below  it  is  a  small  altar  covered 
with  flowers,  candlesticks,  vases,  and  innumerable  knick- 
knacks.  A  long  string  under  the  picture  is  hung  full  of 
tiny  gold  and  silver  votive  offerings  from  persons  who  have 
been  miraculously  cured  in  answer  to  prayers  made  to 
the  saint.  Legs,  arms,  hands,  eyes,  hearts,  heads,  babies, 
dogs,  horses,  —  no  organ,  no  creature,  that  could  suffer, 
is  unrepresented.  The  old  woman  has  at  her  tongue's 
end  the  tale  of  each  one  of  these  miracles.  She  is  herself 
a  sad  cripple  ;  her  feet  swollen  by  inflammation,  which  for 
manj-  years  has  given  her  incessant  torture  and  made  it 
impossible  for  her  to  walk,  except  with  tottering  steps, 
from  room  to  room,  by  help  of  a  staff.  This,  she  says,  is 
the  onl}"  thing  her  saint  has  not  cured.  It  is  her  "  cross," 
her  "  mortification  of  the  flesh,"  "  to  take  her  to  heaven." 
"He  knows  best."  As  she  speaks,  her  eyes  perpetually 
seek  the  picture,  resting  on  it  with  a  look  of  ineffable  ado- 
ration. She  has  seen  tears  roll  down  its  cheeks  more  than 
once,  she  says ;  and  it  often  smiles  on  her  when  they  are 
alone.  When  strangers  enter  the  room  she  can  alwaj-s 
tell,  by  its  expression,  whether  the  saint  is  or  is  not 
pleased  with  them,  and  whether  their  prayers  will  be 
granted.  She  was  good  enough  to  remark  that  he  was 
very  glad  to  see  us ;  she  was  sure  of  it  by  the  smile  in  his 
eye.  He  had  wrought  many  beautiful  miracles  for  her. 
Nothing  was  too  trivial  for  his  sympathy  and  help.  Once 
when  she  had  broken  a  vase  in  which  she  had  been  in 
the  habit  of  keeping  flowers  on  the  altar,  she  took  the 
pieces  in  her  hands,  and  standing  before  him,  said : 
8 


114  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

"You  know  you  will  miss  this  vase.  I  always  put  your 
flowers  in  it,  and  1  am  too  poor  to  buy  another.  Now,  do 
mend  this  for  me.  I  have,nobody  but  you  to  help  me." 
And  the  vase  grew  together  again  whole  while  she  was 
speaking.  In  the  same  way  he  mended  for  her  a  high 
glass  flower-case  which  stood  on  the  altar. 

Thus  she  jabbered  away  breathlessly  in  Spanish,  almost 
too  fast  to  be  followed.  Sitting  in  a  high  chair,  her  poor 
distorted  feet  propped  on  a  cushion,  a  black  silk  handker- 
chief wound  like  a  turban  around  her  head,  a  plaid  ribosa 
across  her  shoulders,  contrasting  sharply  with  her  shabby 
wine-colored  gown,  her  hands  clasped  around  a  yellow 
staff,  on  which  she  leaned  as  she  bent  forward  in  her 
eager  speaking,  she  made  a  study  for  an  artist. 

She  was  very  beautiful  in  her  youth,  she  said ;  her 
cheeks  so  red  that  people  thought  they  were  painted  ;  and 
she  was  so  strong  that  she  was  never  tired  ;  and  when,  in 
the  first  year  of  her  widowhood,  a  stranger  came  to  her 
"with  a  letter  of  recommendation"  to  be  her  second  hus- 
band, and  before  she  had  time  to  speak  had  fallen  on  his 
knees  at  her  feet,  she  seized  him  by  the  throat,  and  top- 
pling him  backward,  pinned  him  against  the  wall  till  he 
was  black  in  the  face.  And  her  sister  came  running  up 
in  terror,  imploring  her  not  to  kill  him.  But  all  that 
strength  is  gone  now,  she  says  sadly  ;  her  memory  also. 
Each  day,  as  soon  as  she  has  finished  her  prayers,  she  has 
to  put  away  her  rosary  in  a  special  place,  or  else  she  for- 
gets that  the  prayers  have  been  said.  Many  priests  have 
desired  to  possess  her  precious  miracle-working  saint ;  but 
never  till  she  dies  will  it  leave  her  bedroom.  Not  a  week 
passes  without  some  one's  arriving  to  implore  its  aid. 
Sometimes  the  deeply  distressed  come  on  their  knees  all 
the  way  from  the  gate  before  the  house,  op  the  steps, 
through  the  hall,  and  into  her  bedroom.  Such  occasions 
as  these  are  to  her  full  of  solemn  joy,  and  no  doubt,  also, 
of  a  secret  exultation  whose  kinship  to  pride  she  does  not 
suspect. 

In  another  unpretending  little  adobe  house,  not  far  from 
this  Saint  Francis  shrine,  lives  the  granddaughter  of  Mo- 
reno, one  of  the  twelve  Spanish  soldiers  who  founded  the 
city.  She  speaks  no  word  of  English  ;  and  her  soft  black 
eyes  are  timid,  though  she  is  the  widow  of  a  general,  and 


ECHOES  IN  THE   CITY  OF  THE  ANGELS.      115 

in  the  stormy  days  of  the  City  of  the  Angels,  passed 
through  many  a  crisis  of  peril  and  adventure.  Her  house 
is  full  of  curious  relics,  which  she  shows  with  a  gentle, 
half-ainused  courtesy.  It  is  not  easy  for  her  to  believe 
that  any  American  can  feel  real  reverence  for  the  symbols, 
tokens,  and  relics  of  the  life  and  customs  which  his  people 
destroyed.  In  her  mind  Americans  remain  to-day  as  com- 
plete!}- foreigners  as  the}-  were  when  her  husband  girded 
on  his  sword  and  went  out  to  fight  them,  forty  years  ago. 
Man}-  of  her  relics  have  been  rescued  at  one  time  or  an- 
other from  plunderers  of  the  missions.  She  has  an  old 
bronze  kettle  which  once  held  holy  water  at  San  Fernando  ; 
an  incense  cup  and  spoon,  and  massive  silver  candlesticks  ; 
cartridge-boxes  of  leather,  with  Spain's  ancient  seal 
stamped  on  them ;  a  huge  copper  caldron  and  scales 
from  San  Gabriel ;  a  bunch  of  ke}-s  of  hammered  iron, 
locks,  scissors,  reaping-hooks,  shovels,  carding-brushes 
for  wool  and  for  flax  :  all  made  by  the  Indian  workmen  in 
the  missions.  There  was  also  one  old  lock,  in  which  the 
key  was  rusted  fast  and  immovable,  which  seemed  to  me 
fuller  of  suggestion  than  anything  else  there  of  the  sealed 
and  ended  past  to  which  it  had  belonged ;  and  a  curious 
little  iron  cannon,  in  shape  like  an  ale-mug,  about  eight 
inches  high,  with  a  hole  in  the  side  and  in  the  top,  to  be  used 
b}-  setting  it  on  the  ground  and  laying  a  trail  of  powder  to 
the  opening  in  the  side.  This  gave  the  Indians  great  de- 
light. It  was  fired  at  the  times  of  church  festivals,  and  in 
seasons  of  drought  to  bring  rain.  Another  curious  instru- 
ment of  racket  was  the  matrarca,  a  strip  of  board  with 
two  small  swinging  iron  handles  so  set  in  it  that,  in  swing- 
ing back  and  forth,  they  hit  iron  plates.  In  the  time  of 
Lent,  when  all  ringing  of  bells  was  forbidden,  these  were 
rattled  to  call  the  Indians  to  church.  The  noise  one  of 
them  can  make  when  vigorously  shaken  is  astonishing.  In 
crumpled  bundles,  their  stiffened  meshes  opening  out  re- 
luctantly, were  two  curious  rush-woven  nets  which  had 
been  used  by  Indian  women  fifty  j-ears  ago  in  carrying 
burdens.  Similar  nets,  made  of  twine,  are  used  by  them 
still.  Fastened  to  a  leather  strap  or  band  passing  around 
the  forehead,  they  hang  down  behind  far  below  the  waist, 
and  when  filled  out  to  their  utmost  holding  capacity-  are  so 
heavy  that  the  poor  creatures  bend  nearly  double  beneath 


116  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

them.  But  the  women  stand  as  uncomplainingly  as  camels 
while  weight  after  weight  is  piled  in  ;  then  slipping  the 
band  over  their  heads,  they  adjust  the  huge  burden  and 
set  off  at  a  trot. 

"  This  is  the  squaw's  horse,"  said  an  Indian  woman  in 
the  San  Jacinto  valley  one  day,  tapping  her  forehead 
and  laughing  good-naturedly,  when  the  shopkeeper  re- 
monstrated with  her  husband,  who  was  heaping  article 
after  article,  and  finall}'  a  large  sack  of  flour,  on  her 
shoulders  ;  "  squaw's  horse  very  strong." 

The  original  site  of  the  San  Gabriel  Mission  was  a  few 
miles  to  the  east  of  the  City  of  the  Angels.  Its  lands  are 
now  divided  into  ranches  and  colony  settlements,  only  a 
few  acres  remaining  in  the  possession  of  the  Church.  But 
the  old  chapel  is  still  standing  in  a  fair  state  of  preserva- 
tion, used  for  the  daily  services  of  the  San  Gabriel  parish ; 
and  there  are  in  its  near  neighborhood  a  few  crumbling 
adobe  hovels  left,  the  only  remains  of  the  once  splendid 
and  opulent  mission.  In  one  of  these  lives  a  Mexican 
woman,  eighty-two  years  old,  who  for  more  than  half  a 
century  has  washed  and  mended  the  priests'  laces,  repaired 
the  robes,  and  remodelled  the  vestments  of  San  Gabriel. 
She  is  worth  crossing  the  continent  to  see  :  all  white  from 
head  to  foot,  as  if  bleached  by  some  strange  gramarye ; 
white  hair,  white  skin,  blue  eyes  faded  nearly  to  white ; 
white  cotton  clothes,  ragged  and  not  over  clean,  yet  not  a 
trace  of  color  in  them  ;  a  white  linen  handkerchief,  deli- 
cately embroidered  by  herself,  always  tied  loosely  around 
her  throat.  She  sits  on  a  low  box,  leaning  against  the 
wall,  with  three  white  pillows  at  her  back,  her  feet  on  a 
cushion  on  the  ground  ;  in  front  of  her,  another  low  box, 
on  this  a  lace-maker's  pillow,  with  knotted  fringe  stretched 
on  it;  at  her  left  hand  a  battered  copper  caldron,  hold- 
ing hot  coals  to  warm  her  fingers  and  to  light  her  cigar- 
ettes. A  match  she  will  never  use ;  and  she  has  seldom 
been  without  a  cigarette  in  her  mouth  since  she  was  six 
years  old.  On  her  right  hand  is  a  chest  filled  with  her 
treasures, — rags  of  damask,  silk,  velvet,  lace,  muslin, 
ribbon,  artificial  flowers,  flosses,  worsteds,  silks  on  spools  ; 
here  she  sits,  day  in,  clay  out,  making  cotton  fringes  and, 
out  of  shreds  of  silk,  tiny  embroidered  scapulars,  which 
she  sells  to  all  devout  and  charitable  people  of  the  region. 


ECHOES  IN  THE   CITY  OF  THE  ANGELS.      117 

She  also  teaches  the-  children  of  the  parish  to  read  and  to 
pra}'.  The  walls  of  her  hovel  are  papered  with  tattered 
pictures,  including  many  gay-colored  ones,  taken  off  tin 
cans,  their  flaunting  signs  reading  drolly,  —  "Perfection 
Press  Mackerel,  Boston,  Mass.,"  "Charm  Baking  Pow- 
der," and  "Knowlton's  Inks,"  alternating  with  kt  Toledo 
Blades"  and  clipper-ship  advertisements.  She  finds  these 
of  great  use  in  both  teaching  and  amusing  the  children. 
The  ceiling,  of  canvas,  black  with  smoke,  and  festooned 
with  cobwebs,  sags  down  in  folds,  and  shows  many  a  rent. 
When  it  rains,  her  poor  little  place  must  be  drenched  in 
spots.  One  end  of  the  room  is  curtained  off  with  calico ; 
this  is  her  bedchamber.  At  the  other  end  is  a  raised  dais, 
on  which  stands  an  altar,  holding  a  small  statuette  of  the 
Infant  Jesus.  It  is  a  copy  in  wood  of  the  famous  Little 
Jesus  of  Atoches  in  Mexico,  which  is  worshipped  by  all  the 
people  in  that  region.  It  has  been  her  constant  companion 
and  protector  for  fifty  years.  Over  the  altar  is  a  canopy 
of  calico,  decorated  with  paper  flowers,  whirligigs,  doves, 
and  little  gourds  ;  with  votive  offerings,  also,  of  gold  or 
silver,  from  grateful  people  helped  or  cured  by  the  Little 
Jesus.  On  the  statuette's  head  is  a  tiny  hat  of  real  gold, 
and  a  real  gold  sceptre  in  the  little  hand  ;  the  breast  of  its 
fine  white  linen  cambric  gown  is  pinned  by  a  gold  pin.  It 
has  a  wardrobe  with  as  many  changes  as  an  actor.  She 
keeps  these  carefully  hid  away  in  a  small  camphor-wood 
trunk,  but  she  brought  them  all  out  to  show  to  us. 

Two  of  her  barefooted,  ragged  little  pupils  scampered 
in  as  she  was  unfolding  these  gay  doll's  clothes.  They 
crowded  close  around  her  knees  and  looked  on,  with  open- 
mouthed  awe  and  admiration :  a  purple  velvet  cape  with 
white  fringe  for  feast  days ;  capes  of  satin,  of  brocade  ; 
a  dozen  shirts  of  finest  linen,  embroidered  or  trimmed 
with  lace ;  a  tiny  plume  not  more  than  an  inch  long,  of 
gold  exquisitely  carved,  —  this  was  her  chief  treasure. 
It  looked  beautiful  in  his  hat,  she  said,  but  it  was 
too  valuable  to  wear  often.  Hid  away  here  among  the 
image's  best  clothes  were  more  of  the  gold  votive  offer- 
ings it  had  received :  one  a  head  cut  out  of  solid  gold  ; 
several  rosaries  of  carved  beads,  silver  and  gold.  Spite 
of  her  apparently  unbounded  faith  in  the  Little  Jesus' 
power  to  protect  her  and  himself,  the  old  woman  thought 


118  CALIFORNIA  AND   OREGON. 

it  wiser  to  keep  these  valuables  concealed  from  the  com- 
mon gaze. 

Holding  up  a  silken  pillow  some  sixteen  inches  square, 
she  said,  "You  could  not  guess  with  what  that  pillow  is 
filled."  We  could  not,  indeed.  It  was  her  own  hair. 
With  pride  she  asked  us  to  take  it  in  our  hands,  that  we 
might  see  how  heav}-  it  was.  For  sixteen  years  she  had  been 
saving  it,  and  it  was  to  be  put  under  her  head  in  her  cofliii. 
The  friend  who  had  taken  us  to  her  home  exclaimed  on 
hearing  this,  "  And  I  can  tell  3*011  it  was  beautiful  hair. 
I  recollect  it  forty-five  years  ago,  bright  brown,  and  down 
to  her  ankles,  and  enough  of  it  to  roll  herself  up  in."  The 
old  woman  nodded  and  laughed,  much  pleased  at  this  com- 
pliment. She  did  not  know  why  the  Lord  had  preserved 
her  life  so  long,  she  said  ;  but  she  was  very  happj*.  Her 
nieces  had  asked  her  to  go  and  live  with  them  in  Santa 
Ana;  but  she  could  not  go  away  from  San  Gabriel.  She 
told  them  that  there  was  plent}'  of  water  in  the  ditch  close 
by  her  door,  and  that  God  would  take  care  of  the  rest,  and 
so  he  had  ;  she  never  w^nts  for  anything ;  not  only  is  she 
never  hungry  herself,  but  she  always  has  food  to  give 
away.  No  one  would  suppose  it,  but  many  people  come 
to  eat  with  her  in  her  house.  God  never  forgets  her  one 
minute.  She  is  very  happy.  She  is  never  ill ;  or  if  she  is, 
she  has  two  remedies,  which,  in  all  her  life,  have  never 
failed  to  cure  her,  and  they  cost  nothing,  —  saliva  and  ear- 
wax.  For  a  pain,  the  sign  of  the  cross,  made  with  saliva 
on  the  spot  which  is  in  pain,  is  instantaneously  effective ; 
for  an  eruption  or  any  skin  disorder,  the  application  of  ear- 
wax  is  a  sure  cure.  She  is  very  glad  to  live  so  close  to  the 
church  ;  the  father  has  promised  her  this  room  as  long  as 
she  lives ;  when  she  dies,  it  will  be  no  trouble,  he  says,  to 
pick  her  up  and  carry  her  across  the  road  to  the  church. 
In  a  gay  painted  box,  standing  on  two  chairs,  so  as  to  be 
kept  from  the  dampness  of  the  bare  earth  floor,  she  cher- 
ishes the  few  relics  of  her  better  days  :  a  shawl  and  a  rib- 
osa  of  silk,  and  two  gowns,  one  of  black  silk,  one  of  dark 
blue  satin.  These  are  of  the  fashions  of  twenty  years  ago ; 
they  were  given  to  her  by  her  husband.  She  wears  them 
now  when  she  goes  to  church ;  so  it  is  as  if  she  were; 
"  married  again,"  she  says,  and  is  "  her  husband's  work 
still."  She  seems  to  be  a  character  well  known  and  held 


ECHOES  IN  THE   CITY  OF  THE  ANGELS.      119 

in  some  regard  by  the  clerg\T  of  her  church.  When  the 
bishop  returned  a  lew  years  ago  from  a  visit  to  Rome,  he 
brought  her  a  little  gift,  a  carved  figure  of  a  saint.  She 
asked  him  if  he  could  not  get  for  her  a  bit  of  the  relics  of 
Saint  Viviano.  "  Oh,  let  alone  !"  he  replied  ;  "  give  you 
relics  ?  Wait  a  bit ;  and  as  soon  as  you  die,  I  '11  have 
you  made  into  relics  yourself."  She  laughed  as  heartily, 
telling  this  somewhat  unecclesiastical  rejoinder,  as  if  "it 
had  been  made  at  some  other  person's  expense. 

In  the  marvellously  preserving  air  of  California,  added  to 
her  own  contented  temperament,  there  is  no  reason  why 
this  happy  old  lad}-  should  not  last,  as  some  of  her  Indian 
neighbors  have,  well  into  a  second  century.  Before  she 
ceases  from  her  peaceful,  pitiful  little  labors,  new  genera- 
tions of  millionnaires  in  her  country  will  no  doubt  have  piled 
up  bigger  fortunes  than  this  generation  ever  dreams  of, 
but  there  will  not  be  a  man  of  them  all  so  rich  as  she. 

In  the  western  suburbs  of  Los  Angeles  is  a  low  adobe 
house,  built  after  the  ancient  stj'le,  on  three  sides  of  a 
squai-e,  surrounded  by  orchards,  vineyards,  and  orange 
groves,  and  looking  out  on  an  old-fashioned  garden,  in 
which  southernwood,  rue,  lavender,  mint,  marigolds,  and 
gillyflowers  hold  their  own  braveby,  growing  in  straight 
and  angular  beds  among  the  newer  splendors  of  verbenas, 
roses,  carnations,  and  geraniums.  On  two  sides  of  the 
house  runs  a  broad  porch,  where  stand  rows  of  geraniums 
and  chrysanthemums  growing  in  odd-shaped  earthen  pots. 
Here  majT  often  be  seen  a  beautiful  young  Mexican  woman, 
flitting  about  among  the  plants,  or  sporting  with  a  superb 
Saint  Bernard  dog.  Her  clear  olive  skin,  soft  brown  eyes, 
delicate  sensitive  nostrils,  and  broad  smiling  mouth,  are 
all  of  the  Spanish  madonna  type  ;  and  when  her  low  brow 
is  bound,  as  is  often  her  wont,  by  turban  folds  of  soft 
brown  or  green  gauze,  her  face  becomes  a  picture  indeed. 
She  is  the  young  wife  of  a  gray-headed  Mexican  seiior,  of 
whom  —  by  his  own  most  gracious  permission  —  I  shall 
speak  b}T  his  familiar  name,  Don  Antonio.  Whoever  has 
the  fortune  to  pass  as  a  friend  across  the  threshold  of  this 
house  finds  himself  transported,  as  by  a  miracle,  into  the 
life  of  a  half-century  ago.  The  rooms  are  ornamented 
with  fans,  shells,  feather  and  wax  flowers,  pictures,  saints' 
images,  old  laces,  and  stuffs,  in  the  quaint  gay  Mexican 


120  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

fashion.  On  the  day  when  I  first  saw  them,  they  were 
brilliant  with  bloom.  In  every  one  of  the  deep  window- 
seats  stood  a  cone  of  bright  flowers,  its  base  made  by  large 
white  datura  blossoms,  their  creamy  whorls  all  turned  out- 
ward, making  a  superb  decoration.  I  went  for  but  a  few 
moments'  call.  I  stayed  three  hours,  and  left  carrying 
with  me  bewildering  treasures  of  pictures  of  the  olden 
time. 

Don  Antonio  speaks  little  English ;  but  the  senora 
knows  just  enough  of  the  language  to  make  her  use  of  it 
delicious,  as  she  translates  for  her  husband.  It  is  an  en- 
trancing sight  to  watch  his  dark,  weather-beaten  face,  full 
of  lightning  changes  as  he  pours  out  torrents  of  his  ner- 
vous, eloquent  Spanish  speech  ;  watching  his  wife  intently, 
hearkening  to  each  word  she  uses,  sometimes  interrupting 
her  urgently  with,  "  No,  no ;  that  is  not  it,"  —  for  he  well 
understands  the  tongue  he  cannot  or  will  not  use  for  him- 
self. He  is  sixt}'-five  years  of  age,  but  he  is  young :  the 
best  waltzer  in  Los  Angeles  to-da}T ;  his  eye  keen,  his 
blood  fiery  quick ;  his  memory  like  a  burning-glass  bring- 
ing into  sharp  light  and  focus  a  half-century  as  if  it  were 
a  yesterday.  Full  of  sentiment,  of  an  intense  and  poetic 
nature,  he  looks  back  to  the  lost  empire  of  his  race  and 
people  on  the  California  shores  with  a  sorrow  far  too  proud 
for  any  antagonisms  or  complaints.  He  recognizes  the 
inexorableness  of  the  laws  under  whose  workings  his  na- 
tion is  slowly,  surely  giving  place  to  one  more  representa- 
tive of  the  age.  Intellectually  he  is  in  sympathy  with 
progress,  with  reform,  with  civilization  at  its  utmost ;  he 
would  not  have  had  them  stayed,  or  changed,  because  his 
people  could  not  keep  up,  and  were  not  ready.  But  his 
heart  is  none  the  less  saddened  and  lonely. 

This  is  probably  the  position  and  point  of  view  of  most 
cultivated  Mexican  men  of  his  age.  The  suffering  in- 
volved in  it  is  inevitable.  It  is  part  of  the  great,  unreck- 
oned  price  which  must  always  be  paid  for  the  gain  the 
world  gets,  when  the  young  and  strong  supersede  the  old 
and  weak. 

A  sunny  little  southeast  corner  room  in  Don  Antonio's 
house  is  full  of  the  relics  of  the  time  when  he  and  his 
father  were  foremost  representatives  of  ideas  and  progress 
in  the  City  of  the  Angels,  and  taught  the  first  school  that 


ECHOES  IN  THE   CITY  OF   THE  ANGELS.      121 

was  kept  in  the  place.  This  was  nearly  a  half-century 
ago.  On  the  walls  of  the  room  still  hang  maps  and 
charts  which  they  used ;  and  carefully  preserved,  with  the 
tender  reverence  of  which  only  poetic  natures  are  capable, 
are  still  to  be  seen  there  the  old  atlases,  primers,  cate- 
chisms, grammars,  reading-books,  which  meant  toil  and 
trouble  to  the  merry,  ignorant  children  of  the  merry  and 
ignorant  people  of  that  time. 

The  leathern  covers  of  the  books  are  thin  and  frayed  by 
long  handling ;  the  edges  of  the  leaves  worn  down  as  if 
mice  had  gnawed  them  :  tattered,  loose,  hanging  by  yellow 
threads,  they  look  far  older  than  they  are,  and  bear  vivid 
record  of  the  days  when  books  were  so  rare  and  precious 
that  each  book  did  doubled  and  redoubled  duty,  passing 
from  hand  to  hand  and  house  to  house.  It  was  on  the  old 
Lancaster  system  that  Los  Angeles  set  out  in  educating  its 
children  ;  and  here  are  still  preserved  the  formal  and  elab- 
orate instructions  for  teachers  and  schools  on  that  plan  ; 
also  volumes  of  Spain's  laws  for  military  judges  in  1781, 
and  a  quaint  old  volume  called  "  Secrets  of  Agriculture, 
Fields  and  Pastures,"  written  by  a  Catholic  Father  in  1617, 
reprinted  in  1781,  and  held  of  great  value  in  its  day  as  a 
sure  guide  to  success  with  crops.  Accompanying  it  was  a 
chart,  a  perpetual  circle,  by  which  might  be  foretold,  with 
certainty,  what  years  would  be  barren  and  what  ones 
fruitful. 

Almanacs,  histories,  arithmetics,  dating  back  to  1750, 
drawing-books,  multiplication  tables,  music,  and  bundles 
of  records  of  the  branding  of  cattle  at  the  San  Gabriel 
Mission,  are  among  the  curiosities  of  this  room.  The 
music  of  the  first  quadrilles  ever  danced  in  Mexico  is 
here :  a  ragged  pamphlet,  which,  no  doubt,  went  gleeful 
rounds  in  the  City  of  the  Angels  for  many  a  year.  It  is 
H  merry  music,  simple  in  melody,  but  with  an  especial 
quality  of  light- heartedness,  suiting  the  people  who  danced 
to  it. 

There  are  also  in  the  little  room  many  relics  of  a  more 
substantial  sort  than  tattered  papers  and  books  :  a  brand- 
ing-iron and  a  pair  of  handcuffs  from  the  San  Gabriel  Mis- 
sion ;  curiously  decorated  clubs  and  sticks  used  by  the 
Indians  in  their  games ;  boxes  of  silver  rings  and  balls 
made  for  decorations  of  bridles  and  on  leggings  and 


122  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

knee-breeches.  The  place  of  honor  in  the  room  is  given 
as  well  it  might  be,  to  a  small  cannon,  the  first  cannon 
brought  into  California.  It  was  made  in  1717,  and  was 
brought  by  Father  Junipero  Serra  to  San  Diego  in  1769. 
Afterward  it  was  given  to  the  San  Gabriel  Mission,  but  it 
still  bears  its  old  name,  "  San  Diego."  It  is  an  odd  little 
arm,  only  about  two  feet  long,  and  requiring  but  six 
ounces  of  powder.  Its  swivel  is  made  with  a  rest  to  set 
firm  in  the  ground.  It  has  taken  many  long  journeys  on 
the  backs  of  mules,  having  been  in  great  requisition  in  the 
early  mission  days  for  the  firing  of  salutes  at  festivals  and 
feasts. 

Don  Antonio  was  but  a  lad  when  his  father's  family  re- 
moved from  the  city  of  Mexico  to  California.  They  came 
in  one  of  the  many  unfortunate  colonies  sent  out  by  the 
Mexican  Government  during  the  first  years  of  the  secular- 
ization period,  having  had  a  toilsome  and  suffering  two 
months,  going  in  wagons  from  Mexico  to  San  Bias,  then  a 
tedious  and  uncomfortable  voyage  of  several  weeks  from 
San  Bias  to  Monterey,  where  they  arrived  only  to  find 
themselves  deceived  and  disappointed  in  every  particular, 
and  surrounded  by  hostilities,  plots,  and  dangers  on  all 
sides.  So  great  was  the  antagonism  to  them  that  it  was 
at  times  difficult  for  a  colonist  to  obtain  food  from  a  Cali- 
fornian.  They  were  arrested  on  false  pretences,  thrown 
into  prison,  shipped  off  like  convicts  from  place  to  place, 
with  no  one  to  protect  them  or  plead  their  cause.  Revolu- 
tion succeeded  upon  revolution,  and  it  was  a  most  unhappy 
period  for  ah1  refined  and  cultivated  persons  who  had 
joined  the  colony  enterprises.  Young  men  of  education 
and  1  .i-eeding  were  glad  to  earn  their  daily  bread  by  any 
menial  labor  that  offered.  Don  Antonio  'and  several  of 
his  young  friends,  who  had  all  studied  medicine  together, 
spent  the  greater  part  of  a  year  in  making  shingles.  The 
one  hope  and  aim  of  most  of  them  was  to  earn  money 
enough  to  get  back  to  Mexico.  Don  Antonio,  however, 
seems  to  have  had  more  versatility  and  capacity  than  his 
friends,  for  he  never  lost  courage  ;  and  it  was  owing  to  him 
that  at  last  his  whole  family  gathered  in  Los  Angeles  and 
established  a  home  there.  'This  was  in  1836.  There  were 
then  only  about  eight  hundred  people  in  the  pueblo,  and 
the  customs,  superstitious,  and  ignorances  of  the  earliest 


ECHOES  IN  THE  CITY  OF  THE  ANGELS.     123 

days  still  held  sway.  The  missions  were  still  rich  and 
powerful,  though  the  confusions  and  conflicts  of  their  ruin 
had  begun.  At  this  time  the  young  Antonio,  being  quick 
at  accounts  and  naturally  ingenious  at  ah1  sorts  of  mechani- 
cal crafts,  found  profit  as  well  as  pleasure  in  journeying 
from  mission  to  mission,  sometimes  spending  two  or  three 
months  in  one  place,  keeping  books,  or  repairing  silver 
and  gold  ornaments. 

The  blowpipe  which  he  made  for  himself  at  that  time 
his  wife  exhibits  now  with  affectionate  pride ;  and  there 
are  few  things  she  enjo3*s  better  than  translating  to  an 
eager  listener  his  graphic  stories  of  the  incidents  and 
adventures  of  that  portion  of  his  life. 

While  he  was  at  the  San  Antonio  Mission,  a  strange 
thing  happened.  It  is  a  good  illustration  of  the  stintless 
hospitality  of  those  old  missions,  that  staying  there  at  that 
time  were  a  notorious  gambler  and  a  celebrated  juggler 
who  had  come  out  in  the  colony  from  Mexico.  The  jug- 
gler threatened  to  turn  the  gambler  into  a  crow  ;  the  gam- 
bler, after  watching  his  tricks  for  a  short  time,  became 
frightened,  and  asked  young  Antonio,  in  serious  good 
faith,  if  he  did  not  believe  the  juggler  had  made  a  league 
with  the  devil.  A  few  nights  afterward,  at  midnight,  a 
terrible  noise  was  heard  in  the  gambler's  room.  He  was 
found  in  convulsions,  foaming  at  the  mouth,  and  crying, 
"Oh,  father !  father !  I  have  got  the  devil  inside  of  me ! 
Take  him  away !  " 

The  priest  dragged  him  into  the  chapel,  showered  him 
with  holy  water,  and  exorcised  the  devil,  first  making  the 
gambler  promise  to  leave  off  his  gambling  forever.  All  the 
rest  of  the  night  the  rescued  sinner  spent  in  the  chapel, 
praying  and  weeping.  In  the  morning  he  announced  his 
intention  of  becoming  a  priest,  and  began  his  studies  at 
once.  These  he  faithfully  pursued  for  a  year,  leading  all 
the  while  a  life  of  great  devotion.  At  the  end  of  that 
time  preparations  were  made  for  his  ordination  at  San 
Jose.  The  day  was  set,  the  hour  came :  he  was  in  the 
sacristy,  had  put  on  the  sacred  vestments,  and  was  just 
going  toward  the  church  door,  when  he  fell  to  the  floor, 
dead.  Soon  after  this  the  juggler  was  banished  from  the 
country,  trouble  and  disaster  having  everywhere  followed 
on  his  presence. 


124  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

On  the  first  breaking  out  of  hostilities  between  California 
and  the  United  States,  Don  Antonio  took  command  of  a 
company  of  Los  Angeles  volunteers  to  repel  the  intruders. 
By  this  time  he  had  attained  a  prominent  position  in  the 
affairs  of  the  pueblo  ;  had  been  alcalde  and,  under  Governor 
Michelorena,  inspector  of  public  works.  It  was  like  the 
fighting  of  children,  —  the  impetuous  attempts  that  hetero- 
geneous little  bands  of  Californians  here  and  there  made  to 
hold  their  country.  They  were  pluck}-  from  first  to  last ; 
for  they  were  everywhere  at  a  disadvantage,  and  fought  on, 
quite  in  the  dark  as  to  what  Mexico  meant  to  do  about 
them,  —  whether  she  might  not  any  morning  deliver  them 
over  to  the  enemy.  Of  all  Don  Antonio's  graphic  narra- 
tives of  the  olden  time,  none  is  more  interesting  than  those 
which  describe  his  adventures  during  the  da3*s  of  this  con- 
test. On  one  of  the  first  approaches  made  by  the  Ameri- 
cans to  Los  Angeles,  he  went  out  with  his  little  haphazard 
company  of  men  and  boys  to  meet  them.  He  had  but  one 
cannon,  a  small  one,  tied  by  ropes  on  a  cart  axle.  He  had 
but  one  small  keg  of  powder  which  was  good  for  anything  ; 
all  the  rest  was  bad,  would  mereby  go  off  "pouf,  pouf," 
the  seiiora  said,  and  the  ball  would  pop  down  near  the 
mouth  of  the  cannon.  With  this  bad  powder  he  fired  his 
first  shots.  The  Americans  laughed  ;  this  is  child's  plaj', 
they  said,  and  pushed  on  closer.  Then  came  a  good  shot, 
with  the  good  powder,  tearing  into  their  ranks  and  knock- 
ing them  right  and  left;  another,  and  another.  "Then 
the  Americans  began  to  think,  these  are  no  pouf  balls ; 
and  when  a  few  more  were  killed,  they  ran  away  and  left 
•their  flag  behind  them.  And  if  they  had  only  known 
it,  the  Californians  had  only  one  more  charge  left  of  the 
good  powder,  and  the  next  minute  it  would  have  been 
the  Californians  that  would  have  had  to  run  away 
themselves,"  merrily  laughed  the  senora  as  she  told  the 
tale. 

This  captured  flag,  with  important  papers,  was  intrusted 
to  Don  Antonio  to  carry  to  the  Mexican  headquarters  at 
Sonora.  He  set  off  with  an  escort  of  soldiers,  his  horse 
decked  with  silver  trappings  ;  his  sword,  pistols,  all  of 
the  finest :  a  proud  beginning  of  a  journey  destined  to  end 
in  n  different  fashion.  It  was  in  winter  time ;  cold  rains 
were  falling.  By  night  he  was  drenched  to  the  skin,  and 


ECHOES  IN  THE   CITY  OF  THE  ANGELS.      125 

stopped  at  a  friendly  Indian's  tent  to  change  his  clothes. 
Hard  13"  had  he  got  them  off  when  the  sound  of  horses' 
hoofs  was  heard.  The  Indian  flung  himself  down,  put  his 
car  to  the  ground,  and  exclaimed,  "Americanos  !  Ameri- 
canos ! "  Almost  in  the  same  second  they  were  at  the 
tent's  door.  As  they  halted,  Don  Antonio,  clad  only  in 
his  drawers  and  stockings,  crawled  out  at  the  back  of  the 
tent,  and  creeping  on  all  fours  reached  a  tree  up  which  he 
climbed,  and  sat  safe  hidden  in  the  darkness  among  its 
branches  listening,  while  his  pursuers  cross-questioned  the 
Indian,  and  at  last  rode  away  with  his  horse.  Luckily, 
he  had  carried  into  the  tent  the  precious  papers  and  the 
captured  flag :  these  he  intrusted  to  an  Indian  to  take  to 
Sonora,  it  being  evidently  of  no  use  for  him  to  tr3'  to  cross 
the  country  thus  closely  pursued  by  his  enemies. 

All  night  he  lay  hidden ;  the  next  day  he  walked  twelve 
miles  across  the  mountains  to  an  Indian  village  where  he 
hoped  to  get  a  horse.  It  was  dark  when  he  reached  it. 
Cautiously  he  opened  the  door  of  the  hut  of  one  whom  he 
knew  well.  The  Indian  was  preparing  poisoned  arrows : 
fixing  one  on  the  string  and  aiming  at  the  door,  he  called 
out,  angrily,  "Who  is  there?"  —  "It  is  I,  Antonio."  — 
"Don't  make  a  sound,"  whispered  the  Indian,  throwing 
down  his  arrow,  springing  to  the  door,  coming  out  and 
closing  it  softly.  He  then  proceeded  to  tell  him  that  the 
Americans  had  offered  a  reward  for  his  head,  and  that 
some  of  the  Indians  in  the  rancheria  were  ready  to  betray 
or  kill  him.  While  the3*  were  yet  talking,  again  came  the 
sound  of  the  Americans'  horses'  hoofs  galloping  in  the  dis- 
tance. This  time  there  seemed  no  escape.  Suddenly  Don 
Antonio,  throwing  himself  on  his  stomach,  wriggled  into  a 
cactus  patch  near  b3".  Only  one  who  has  seen  California 
cactus  thickets  can  realize  the  desperateness  of  this  act. 
But  it  succeeded.  The  Indian  threw  over  the  cactus  plants 
an  old  blanket  and  some  refuse  stalks  and  reeds  ;  and  there 
once  more,  within  hearing  of  all  his  baffled  pursuers  said, 
the  hunted  man  Ia37,  safe,  thanks  to  Indian  friendship.  The 
crafty  Indian  assented  to  all  the  Americans  proposed,  said 
that  Don  Antonio  would  be  sure  to  be  caught  in  a  few 
days,  advised  them  to  search  in  a  certain  rancheria  which 
he  described,  a  few  miles  off,  and  in  an  opposite  direction 
from  the  wa3'  in  which  he  intended  to  guide  Don  Antonio. 


126  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

As  soon  as  the  Americans  had  gone,  he  bound  up  Antonio's 
feet  in  strips  of  rawhide,  gave  him  a  blanket  and  an  old 
tattered  hat,  the  best  his  stores  atibrded,  and  then  led  him. 
by  a  long  and  difficult  trail  to  a  spot  high  up  in  the  moun- 
tains where  the  old  women  of  the  band  were  gathering 
acorns.  By  the  time  they  reached  this  place,  blood  was 
trickling  from  Antonio's  feet  and  legs,  and  he  was  well-nigh 
fainting  with  fatigue  and  excitement.  Tears  rolled  down 
the  old  women's  cheeks  when  they  saw  him.  Some  of  them 
had  been  servants  in  his  father's  house,  and  loved  him. 
One  brought  gruel ;  another  bathed  his  feet ;  others  ran 
in  search  of  healing  leaves  of  different  sorts.  Bruising 
these  in  a  stone  mortar,  they  rubbed  him  from  head  to  foot 
with  the  wet  fibre.  All  his  pain  and  weariness  vanished 
as  by  magic.  His  wounds  healed,  and  in  a  day  he  was 
read}'  to  set  off  for  home.  There  was  but  one  pony  in  the 
old  women's  camp.  This  was  old,  vicious,  blind  of  one 
eye,  and  with  one  ear  cropped  short ;  but  it  looked  to  Don 
Antonio  far  more  beautiful  than  the  gay  steed  on  which 
he  had  ridden  away  from  -Los  Angeles  three  days  before. 
There  was  one  pair  of  ragged  shoes  of  enormous  size 
among  the  old  women's  possessions.  These  were  strapped 
on  his  feet  by  leathern  thongs,  and  a  bit  of  old  sheepskin 
was  tied  around  the  pony's  body.  Thus  accoutred  and 
mounted,  shivering  in  his  drawers  under  his  single  blanket, 
the  captain  and  flag-bearer  turned  his  face  homeward.  At 
the  first  friend's  house  he  reached  he  stopped  and  begged  for 
food.  Some  dried  meat  was  given  to  him,  and  a  stool  on 
the  porch  offered  to  him.  It  was  the  house  of  a  dear  friend, 
and  the  friend's  sister  was  his  sweetheart.  As  he  sat  there 
eating  his  meat,  the  women  eyed  him  curiously.  One  said 
to  the  other,  "How  much  he  looks  like  Antonio !"  At 
last  the  sweetheart,  coming  nearer,  asked  him  if  he  were 
"any  relation  of  Don  Antonio."  "No,"  he  said.  Just 
at  that  moment  his  friend  rode  up,  gave  one  glance  at  the 
pitiful  beggar  sitting  on  his  porch,  shouted  his  name, 
dashed  toward  him,  and  seized  him  in  his  arms.  Then  was 
a  great  laughing  and  half-weeping,  for  it  had  been  rumored 
that  he  had  been  taken  prisoner  by  the  Americans. 

From  this  friend  he  received  a  welcome  gift  of  a  pair  of 
trousers,  many  inches  too  short  for  his  legs.  At  the  next 
house  his  fru'iid  was  a^  much  too  tall,  and  his  second  pair 


ECHOES  IN   THE   CITY  OF  THE  ANGELS.      127 

of  gift  trousers  had  to  be  rolled  up  iu  thick  folds  around 
his  ankles. 

Finally  he  reached  Los  Angeles  in  safety.  Halting  in 
a  grove  outside  the  town,  he  waited  till  twilight  before 
entering.  Having  disguised  himself  in  the  rags  which  he 
had  worn  from  the  Indian  village,  he  rode  boldly  up  to  the 
porch  of  his  father's  house,  and  in  an  impudent  tone  called 
for  brandy.  The  terrified  women  began  to  scream  ;  but 
his  youngest  sister,  fixing  one  piercing  glance  on  his  face, 
laughed  out  gladly,  and  cried,  "You  can't  fool  me;  you 
are  Antonio." 

Sitting  in  the  little  corner  room,  looking  out  through 
the  open  door  on  the  gay  garden  and  breathing  its  spring 
air,  ga}-  even  in  midwinter,  and  as  spicy  then  as  the  gar- 
dens of  other  lands  are  in  June,  I  spent  man}-  an  after- 
noon listening  to  such  tales  as  this.  Sunset  always  came 
long  before  its  time,  it  seemed,  on  these  days. 

Occasionally,  at  the  last  moment,  Don  Antonio  would 
take  up  his  guitar,  and,  in  a  voice  still  sympathetic  and 
full  of  melod}*,  sing  an  old  Spanish  love-song,  brought  to 
his  mind  by  thus  living  over  the  events  of  his  youth. 
Never,  however,  in  his  most  ardent  youth,  could  his  eyes 
have  gazed  on  his  fairest  sweetheart's  face  with  a  look  of 
greater  devotion  than  that  with  which  the}-  now  rest  on 
the  noble,  expressive  countenance  of  his  wife,  as  he  sings 
the  ancient  and  tender  strains.  Of  one  of  them,  I  once 
won  from  her,  amid  laughs  and  blushes,  a  few  words  of 
translation :  — 

"  Let  us  hear  the  sweet  echo 
Of  your  sweet  voice  that  charms  me. 
The  one  that  truly  loves  you, 
He  says  he  wishes  to  love  ; 
That  the  one  who  with  ardent  love  adores  you, 
Will  sacrifice  himself  for  you. 
Do  not  deprive  me, 

Owner  of  me. 
Of  that  sweet  echo 
Of  your  sweet  voice  that  charms  me." 

Near  the  western  end  of  Don  Antonio's  porch  is  an 
orange-tree,  on  which  were  hanging  at  this  time  twenty- 
five  hundred  oranges,  ripe  and  golden  among  the  glossy 
leaves.  Under  this  tree  my  carriage  always  waited  for  me. 


128  CALIFORNIA  AND   OREGON. 

The  senora  never  allowed  me  to  depart  without  bringing 
to  me,  in  the  carriage,  farewell  gifts  of  flowers  and  fruit: 
clusters  of  grapes,  dried  and  fresh ;  great  boughs  full  of 
oranges,  more  than  I  could  lift.  As  I  drove  away  thus, 
my  lap  filled  with  bloom  and  golden  fruit,  canopies  of 
golden  fruit  over  my  head,  I  said  to  myself  often  :  "•  Fables 
are  prophecies.  The  Hesperides  have  coine  true." 


CHANCE  DAYS  IN  OREGON. 

THE  best  things  in  life  seem  always  snatched  on  chances. 
The  longer  one  lives  and  looks  back,  the  more  he  realizes 
this,  and  the  harder  he  finds  it  to  "  make  option  which  of 
two,"  in  the  perpetually  recurring  cases  when  "  there 's 
not  enough  for  this  and  that,"  and  he  must  choose  which 
he  will  do  or  take.  Chancing  right  in  a  decision,  and  see- 
ing clearly  what  a  blunder  any  other  decision  would  have 
been,  only  makes  the  next  such  decision  harder,  and  con- 
tributes to  increased  vacillation  of  purpose  and  infirmit3T 
of  will,  until  one  comes  to  have  serious  doubts  whether 
there  be  not  a  truer  philosophy  in  the  "  toss  up  "  test  than 
in  any  other  method.  "  Heads  we  go,  tails  we  stay,"  will 
prove  right  as  many  times  out  of  ten  as  the  most  pains- 
taking pros  and  cons,  weighing,  consulting,  and  slow 
deciding. 

It  was  not  exactly  by  "  heads  and  tails"  that  we  won 
our  glimpse  of  Oregon ;  but  it  came  so  nearly  to  the 
same  thing  that  our  recollections  of  the  journey  are  still 
mingled  with  that  sort  of  exultant  sense  of  delight  with 
which  the  human  mind  always  regards  a  purely  fortuitous 
possession. 

Three  days  and  two  nights  on  the  Pacific  Ocean  is  a 
round  price  to  pay  for  a  thing,  even  for  Oregon,  with  the 
Columbia  River  thrown  in.  There  is  not  so  misnamed  a 
piece  of  water  on  the  globe  as  the  Pacific  Ocean,  nor  so 
unexplainable  a  delusion  as  the  almost  universal  impres- 
sion that  it  is  smooth  sailing  there.  It  is  British  Channel 
and  North  Sea  and  off  the  Hebrides  combined,  —  as  many 
different  twists  and  chops  and  swells  as  there  are  waves. 
People  who  have  crossed  the  Atlantic  again  and  again 
without  so  much  as  a  qualm  are  desperately  ill  between 


130  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

San  Francisco  and  Portland.  There  is  but  one  compar- 
ison for  the  motion :  it  is  as  if  one's  stomach  were  being 
treated  as  double  teeth  are  handled,  when  country  doctors 
are  forced  to  officiate  as  dentists,  and  know  no  better  wa}' 
to  get  a  four-pronged  tooth  out  of  its  socket  than  to  turn 
it  round  and  round  till  it  is  torn  loose. 

Three  days  and  two  nights  !  I  spent  no  inconsiderable 
portion  of  the  time  in  speculations  as  to  Monsieur  Antoine 
Crozat's  probable  reasons  for  giving  back  to  King  Louis 
his  magnificent  grant  of  Pacific  coast  country.  He  kept  it 
five  years,  I  believe.  In  that  time  he  probably  voyaged  up 
and  down  its  shores  thoroughly.  Having  been  an  adven- 
turous trader  in  the  Indies,  he  must  have  been  well  wonted 
to  seas  ;  and  being  worth  forty  millions  of  livres,  he  could 
afford  to  make  himself  as  comfortable  in  the  matter  of  a 
ship  as  was  possible  a  century  and  a  half  ago.  His  grant 
was  a  princely  domain,  an  empire  five  times  larger  than 
France  itself.  What  could  he  have  been  thinking  of,  to 
hand  it  back  to  King  Louis  like  a  worthless  bauble  of 
which  he  had  grown  tired?  Nothing  but  the  terrors  of 
sea-sickness  can  explain  it.  If  he  could  have  foreseen  the 
steam-engine,  and  have  had  a  vision,  of  it  flying  on  iron 
roads  across  continents  and  mountains,  how  differently 
would  he  have  conducted !  The  heirs  of  Monsieur  An- 
toine, if  any  such  there  be  to-day,  must  chafe  when  they 
read  the  terms  of  our  Louisiana  Purchase. 

Three  days  and  two  nights  —  from  Thursday  morning 
till  Saturday  afternoon  —  between  San  Francisco  and  the 
mouth  of  the  Columbia,  and  then  we  had  to  lie  at  Astoria 
the  greater  part  of  Sunday  night  before  the  tide  would  let 
us  go  on  up  the  river.  It  was  not  waste  time,  however. 
Astoria  is  a  place  curious  to  behold.  Seen  from  the  water, 
it  seems  a  tidy  little  white  town  nestled  on  the  shore,  and 
well  topped  off  by  wooded  hills.  Landing,  one  finds  that 
it  must  be  ranked  as  amphibious,  being  literally  half  on 
land  and  half  on  water.  From  Astoria  proper  —  the  old 
Astoria,  which  Mr.  Astor  founded,  and  Washington  Irving 
described  —  up  to  the  new  town,  or  upper  Astoria,  is  a  mile 
and  a  half,  two  thirds  bridges  and  piers.  Long  wooden 
wharves,  more  streets  than  wharves,  resting  on  hundreds 
of  piles,  are  built  out  to  deep  water.  They  fairly  fringe 
the  shore ;  and  the  street  nearest  the  water  is  little  more 


CHANCE  DAYS  IN  OREGON.  131 

than  a  succession  of  bridges  from  wharf  to  wharf.  Fre- 
quent bays  and  inlets  make  up,  leaving  unsightly  mudd3T 
wastes  when  the  tide  goes  out.  To  see  family  washing 
hung  out  on  lines  over  these  tidal  flats,  and  the  farnily 
infants  drawing  their  go-carts  in  the  mud  below,  was  a 
droll  sight.  At  least  every  other  building  on  these  strange 
wharf  streets  is  a  salmon  cannery,  and  acres  of  the  wharf 
surfaces  were  covered  with  salmon  nets  spread  out  to  dry. 
The  streets  were  crowded  with  wild-looking  men,  sailor- 
like,  and  yet  not  sailor-like,  all  wearing  india-rubber  boots 
reaching  far  above  the  knee,  with  queer  wing-like  flaps 
projecting  all  around  at  top.  These  were  the  fishers  of 
salmon,  two  thousand  of  them,  Russians,  Finns,  Germans, 
Italians,  —  "  every  kind  on  the  earth,"  an  old  restaurant- 
keeper  said,  in  speaking  of  them;  "every  kind  on  the 
earth,  they  pour  in  here,  for  four  months,  from  May  to 
September.  They  're  a  wild  set ;  clear  out  with  the  salmon, 
V  don't  mind  any  more  'n  the  fish  do  what  they  leave  be- 
hind 'em." 

All  day  long  they  kill  time  in  the  saloons.  The  nights 
they  spend  on  the  water,  flinging  and  trolling  and  draw- 
ing in  their  nets,  which  often  burst  with  the  weight  of  the 
captured  salmon.  It  is  a  strange  life,  and  one  sure  to 
foster  a  man's  worst  traits  rather  than  his  best  ones.  The 
fishermen  who  have  homes  and  families,  and  are  loval  to 
them,  industrious  and  thrifty,  are  the  exception. 

The  site  of  Mr.  Astor's  original  fort  is  now  the  terraced 
yard  of  a  spruce  new  house  on  the  corner  of  one  of  the 
pleasantest  streets  in  the  old  town.  These  streets  are  little 
more  than  narrow  terraces  rising  one  above  the  other  on 
jutting  and  jagged  levels  of  the  river-bank.  They  com- 
mand superb  off-looks  across  and  up  and  down  the  ma- 
jestic river,  which  is  here  far  more  a  bay  than  a  river. 
The  Astoria  people  must  be  strangely  indifferent  to  these 
views ;  for  the  majority  of  the  finest  houses  face  away 
from  the  water,  looking  straight  into  the  rough  wooded 
hillside. 

Uncouth  and  quaint  vehicles  are  perpetually  plying  be- 
tween the  old  and  the  new  towns ;  they  jolt  along  fast 
over  the  narrow  wooden  roads,  and  the  foot-passengers, 
who  have  no  other  place  to  walk,  are  perpetually  scram- 
bling from  under  the  horses'  heels.  It  is  a  unique  highway : 


132  CALIFORNIA  AND    OREGON. 

pebbly  beaches,  marshes,  and  salt  ponds,  alder-grown 
cliffs,  hemlock  and  spruce  copses  on  its  inland  side ;  on 
the  water-side,  bustling  wharves,  canneries,  fishermen's 
boarding-houses,  great  spaces  filled  in  with  bare  piles  wait- 
ing to  be  floored ;  at  every  turn  shore  and  sea  seem  to 
change  sides,  and  clumps  of  brakes,  fresh-hewn  stumps, 
maple  and  madrone  trees,  shift  places  with  canneries  and 
wharves  ;  the  sea  swashes  under  the  planks  of  the  road  at 
one  minute,  and  the  next  is  an  eighth  of  a  mile  away,  at 
the  end  of  a  close-built  lane.  Even  in  the  thickest  settled 
business  part  of  the  town,  blocks  of  water  alternate  with 
blocks  of  brick  and  stone. 

The  statistics  of  the  salmon-canning  business  almost 
pass  belief.  In  1881  six  hundred  thousand  cases  of 
canned  salmon  were  shipped  from  Astoria.  We  ourselves 
saw  seventy-five  hundred  cases  put  on  board  one  steamer. 
There  were  forty  eight-pound  cans  in  each  case ;  it  took 
five  hours'  steady  work,  of  forty  "  long-shore  men,"  to 
load  them.  These  long-shore  men  are  another  shifting 
and  turbulent  element  in  the  populations  of  the  river 
towns.  They  work  day  and  night,  get  big  wages,  go  from 
place  to  place,  and  spend  money  recklessly ;  a  sort  of 
commercial  Bohemian,  difficult  to  handle  and  often  dan- 
gerous. They  sometimes  elect  to  take  fifty  cents  an  hour 
and  all  the  beer  they  can  drink,  rather  than  a  dollar  an 
hour  and  no  beer.  At  the  time  we  saw  them,  they  were 
on  beer  wages.  The  foaming  beer  casks  stood  at  short 
intervals  along  the  wharf,  —  a  pitcher,  pail,  and  mug  at 
each  cask.  The  scene  was  a  lively  one  :  four  cases  loaded 
at  a  time  on  each  truck,  run  swiftly  to  the  wharf  edge, 
and  slid  down  the  hold ;  trucks  rattling,  turning  sharp 
corners  ;  men  laughing,  wheeling  to  right  and  left  of  each 
other,  tossing  off  mugs  of  beer,  wiping  their  mouths  with 
their  hands,  and  flinging  the  drops  in  the  air  with  jests,  — 
one  half  forgave  them  for  taking  part  wages  in  the  beer, 
it  made  it  so  much  merrier. 

On  Sunday  morning  we  waked  up  to  find  ourselves  at  sea 
in  the  Columbia  River.  A  good  part  of  Oregon  and  Wash- 
ington Territory  seemed  also  to  be  at  sea  there.  When 
a  river  of  the  size  of  the  Columbia  gets  thirtj^  feet  above 
low-water  mark,  towns  and  townships  go  to  sea,  unexpect- 
edly. All  the  way  up  the  Columbia  to  the  Willamette, 


CHANCE  DAYS  IN  OREGON.  133 

and  down  the  Willamette  to  Portland,  we  sailed  in  and  on 
a  freshet,  and  saw  at  once  more  and  less  of  the  country 
than  could  be  seen  at  any  other  time.  At  the  town  of 
Kalama,  facetiously  announced  as  "the  water  terminus 
of  the  Northern  Pacific  Railroad,"  the  hotel,  the  railroad 
station,  and  its  warehouses  were  entirely  surrounded  by 
water,  and  we  sailed,  in  seemingl}-  deep  water,  directly 
over  the  wharf  where  landings  were  usually  made.  At 
other  towns  on  the  wajr  we  ran  well  up  into  the  fields, 
and  landed  passengers  or  freight  on  stray  sand-spits,  or  hil- 
locks, from  which  they  could  get  off  again  on  the  other 
side  by  small  boats.  We  passed  scores  of  deserted  houses, 
their  windows  open,  the  water  swashing  over  their  door- 
sills  ;  gardens  with  only  tops  of  bushes  in  sight,  one  with 
red  roses  swaj'ing  back  and  forth,  limp  and  helpless  on  the 
tide.  It  seemed  strange  that  men  would  build  houses  and 
make  farms  in  a  place  where  they  are  each  }-ear  liable  to 
be  driven  out  b}-  such  freshets.  When  I  expressed  this 
wonder,  an  Oregonian  replied  lightty,  "  Oh,  the  river 
always  gives  them  plenty  of  time.  They  've  all  got  boats, 
and  they  wait  till  the  last  minute  always,  hoping  the 
water '11  go  down."  —  "  But  it  must  be  unwholesome  to 
the  last  degree  to  live  on  such  overflowed  lands.  When 
the  water  recedes,  they  must  get  fevers."  —  "  Oh,  they  get 
used  to  it.  After  they  've  taken  about  a  barrel  of  quinine, 
they  're  pretty  well  acclimated." 

Other  inhabitants  of  the  country  asserted  roundly  that  no 
fevers  followed  these  freshets  ;  that  the  trade-winds  swept 
away  all  malarial  influences  ;  that  the  water  did  no  injury 
whatever  to  the  farms,  —  on  the  contrary,  made  the  crops 
better ;  and  that  these  farmers  along  the  river  bottoms 
"  couldn't  be  hired  to  live  anywhere  else  in  Oregon." 

The  higher  shore  lines  were  wooded  almost  without  a 
break  ;  only  at  long  intervals  an  oasis  of  clearing,  high  up, 
an  emerald  spot  of  barley  or  wheat,  and  a  tiny  farm-house. 
These  were  said  to  be  usually  lumbermen's  homes  ;  it  was 
warmer  up  there  than  in  the  bottom,  and  crops  thrived. 
In  the  not  far-off  day  when  these  kingdoms  of  forests  are 
overthrown,  and  the  Columbia  runs  unshaded  to  the  sea, 
these  hill  shores  will  be  one  vast  granary. 

The  city  of  Portland  is  on  the  Willamette  River,  four- 
teen miles  south  of  the  junction  of  that  river  with  the 


134  CALIFORNIA  AND   OREGON. 

Columbia.  Seen  from  its  water  approach,  Portland  is  a 
picturesque  city,  with  a  near  surrounding  of  hills,  wooded 
with  pines  and*  firs,  that  make  a  superb  sky-line  setting  to 
the  town,  and  to  the  five  grand  snow-peaks,  of  which  clear 
days  give  a  sight.  These  dark  forests  and  spear-top 
fringes  are  a  more  distinctive  feature  in  the  beauty  of 
Portland's  site  than  even  its  fine  waters  and  islands.  It  is 
to  be  hoped  that  the  Portland  people  will  appreciate  their 
value,  and  never  let  their  near  hills  be  shorn  of  trees. 
Not  one  tree  more  should  be  cut.  Already  there  are 
breaks  in  the  forest  horizons,  which  mar  the  picture 
greatly ;  and  it  would  take  but  a  few  da}Ts  of  ruthless 
woodchoppers'  work  to  rob  the  city  forever  of  its  back- 
grounds, turning  them  into  unsightly  barrens.  The  c^ 
is  on  both  sides  of  the  river,  and  is  called  East  and  West 
Portland.  With  the  usual  perversity  in  such  cases,  the 
higher  ground  and  the  sunny  eastern  frontage  belong  to 
the  less  popular  part  of  the  cit}T,  the  west  town  having 
most  of  the  business  and  all  of  the  fine  houses.  Yet  in 
times  of  freshet  its  lower  streets  are  always  under  water ; 
and  the  setting-up  of  back-water  into  drains,  cellars,  and 
empty  lots  is  a  yearly  source  of  much  illness.  When  we 
arrived,  two  of  the  principal  hotels  were  surrounded  by 
water ;  from  one  of  them  there  was  no  going  out  or  com- 
ing in  except  by  planks  laid  on  trestle-work  in  the  piazzas, 
and  the  air  in  the  lower  part  of  the  town  was  foul  with 
bad  smells  from  the  stagnant  water. 

Portland  is  only  thirty  years  old,  and  its  population  is 
not  over  twenty-five  thousand  ;  yet  it  is  said  to  have  more 
wealth  per  head  than  any  other  city  in  the  United  States 
except  New  Haven.  Wheat  and  lumber  and  salmon  have 
made  it  rich.  Oregon  wheat  brings  such  prices  in  Eng- 
land that  ships  can  afford  to  cross  the  ocean  to  get  it ;  and 
last  year  one  hundred  and  thirty-four  vessels  sailed  out  of 
Portland  harbor,  loaded  solely  with  wheat  or  flour. 

The  city  reminds  one  strongly  of  some  of  the  rural 
towns  in  New  England.  The  houses  are  unpretentious, 
wooden,  either  white  or  of  light  colors,  and  uniformly  sur- 
rounded by  pleasant  grounds,  in  which  trees,  shrubs,  and 
flowers  grow  freely,  without  any  attempt  at  formal  or  dec- 
orative culture.  One  of  the  most  delightful  things  about 
the  town  is  its  surrounding  of  wild  and  wooded  country. 


CHANCE  DAYS  IN  OREGON.  135 

In  an  hour,  driving  up  on  the  hills  to  the  west,  one  finds 
himself  in  wildernesses  of  woods  :  spruce,  maple,  cedar, 
and  pine  ;  dogwood,  wild  syringa,  honeysuckle,  ferns  and 
brakes  fitting  in  for  undergrowth  ;  and  below  all,  white 
clover  matting  the  ground.  By  the  roadsides  are  Linnaea, 
red  clover,  yarrow,  May-weed,  and  dandelion,  looking  to 
New  England  e}*es  strangety  familiar  and  unfamiliar  at 
once.  Never  in  New  England  woods  and  roadsides  do 
they  have  such  a  luxurious  diet  of  water  and  rich  soil,  and 
such  comfortable  warm  winters.  The  white  clover  espe- 
cially has  an  air  of  spendthrifty  indulgence  about  it  which  is 
delicious.  It  riots  through  the  woods,  even  in  their  den- 
sest, darkest  depths,  making  luxuriant  pasturage  where  one 
would  least  look  for  it.  On  these  wooded  heights  are 
scores  of  dairy  farms,  which  have  no  clearings  except  of 
the  space  needful  for  the  house  and  outbuildings.  The 
cows,  each  with  a  bell  at  her  neck,  go  roaming  and 
browsing  all  day  in  the  forests.  Out  of  thickets  scarcely 
penetrable  to  the  eye  come  everywhere  along  the  road 
the  contented  notes  of  these  bells'  slow  tinkling  at  the 
cows'  leisure.  The  milk,  cream,  and  butter  from  these 
dairy  farms  are  of  the  excellent  quality  to  be  expected, 
and  we  wondered  at  not  seeing  "  white  clover  butter"  ad- 
vertised as  well  as  "  white  clover  honey."  Land  in  these 
wooded  wilds  brings  from  forty  to  eight}*  dollars  an  acre ; 
cleared,  it  is  admirable  farm  land.  Here  and  there  we 
saw  orchards  of  cherry  and  apple  trees,  which  were  loaded 
•with  fruit ;  the  cherry  trees  so  full  that  the}*  showed  red 
at  a  distance. 

The  alternation  of  these  farms  with  long  tracts  of  forest, 
where  spruces  and  pines  stand  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet 
high,  and  myriads  of  wild  things  have  grown  in  genera- 
tions of  tangle,  gives  to  the  country  around  Portland  a 
charm  and  flavor  peculiarly  its  own  ;  even  into  the  city  it- 
self extends  something  of  the  same  charm  of  contrast  and 
antithesis  ;  meandering  footpaths,  or  narrow  plank  side- 
walks witli  grassy  rims,  running  within  stone's-throw  of 
solid  brick  blocks  and  business  thoroughfares.  One  of  the 
most  interesting  places  in  the  town  is  the  Bureau  of  Immi- 
gration of  the  Northern  Pacific  Railroad.  In  the  centre 
of  the  room  stands  a  tall  case,  made  of  the  native  Oregon 
woods.  It  journeyed  to  the  Paris  and  the  Philadelphia 


136  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

Expositions,  but  nowhere  can  it  have  given  eloquent  mute 
answer  to  so  many  questions  as  it  does  in  its  present  place. 
It  now  holds  jars  of  all  the  grains  raised  in  Oregon  and 
Washington  Territory  ;  also  sheaves  of  superb  stalks  of 
the  same  grains,  arranged  in  circles,  — wheat  six  feet  high, 
oats  ten,  red  clover  over  six,  and  timothy  grass  eight.  To 
see  Swedes,  Norwegians,  Germans,  Irish,  come  in,  stand 
wonderingly  before  this  case,  and  then  begin  to  ask  their 
jargon  of  questions,  was  an  experience  which  did  more  in 
an  hour  to  make  one  realize  what  the  present  tide  of  immi- 
gration to  the  New  Northwest  realty  is  than  reading  of 
statistics  could  do  in  a  year.  These  immigrants  are  pour- 
ing in,  it  is  estimated,  at  the  rate  of  at  least  a  hundred  and 
fifty  a  day,  —  one  hundred  by  vfay  of  San  Francisco  and 
Portland,  twenty-five  by  the  Puget  Sound  ports,  and  an- 
other twentv-five  overland  by  wagons ;  no  two  with  the 
same  aim,  no  two  alike  in  quality  or  capacity.  To  listen  to 
their  inquiries  and  their  narratives,  to  give  them  advice  and 
help,  requires  almost  preternatural  patience  and  sagacity. 
It  might  be  doubted,  perhaps,  whether  this  requisite  com- 
bination could  be  found  in  an  American  ;  certainly  no  one 
of  any  nationality  could  fill  the  office  better  than  it  is  filled 
by  the  tireless  Norwegian  who  occupies  the  post  at  pres- 
ent. It  was  touching  to  see  the  brightened  faces  of  his 
countrymen,  as  their  broken  English  was  answered  by  him 
in  the  familiar  words  of  their  own  tongue.  He  could  tell 
well  which  parts  of  the  new  country  would  best  suit  the 
Hardanger  men,  and  the  men  from  Eide.  It  must  have 
been  hard  for  them  to  believe  his  statements,  even  when 
indorsed  by  the  home  speech.  To  the  ordinary  Scandina- 
vian peasant,  accustomed  to  measuring  cultivable  ground 
by  hand-breadths,  and  making  gardens  in  pockets  in  rocks, 
tales  of  hundreds  of  unbroken  miles  of  wheat  country, 
where  crops  average  from  thirty-five  to  forty-five  bushels 
an  acre,  must  sound  incredible ;  and  spite  of  their  faith  in 
their  countryman,  they  are  no  doubt  surprised  when  their 
first  harvest  in  the  Willamette  or  Umpqua  vallej-  proves 
that  his  statements  were  under,  rather  than  over,  the 
truth. 

The  Columbia  River  steamers  set  off  from  Portland  at 
dawn,  or  thereabouts.  Wise  travellers  go  on  board  the 
night  before,  and  their  first  morning  consciousness  is  a 


CHANCE  DAYS  IN  OREGON.  137 

wonder  at  finding  themselves  afloat,  —  afloat  on  a  sea  ;  for 
it  hardly  seems  like  river  voyaging  when  shores  are  miles 
apart,  and,  in  many  broad  vistas,  water  is  all  that  can 
be  seen.  These  vistas,  in  times  of  high  water,  when  the 
Columbia  may  be  said  to  be  fairly  "seas  over,"  are  grand. 
The}7  shine  and  flicker  for  miles,  right  and  left,  with  green 
feathery  fringes  of  tree-tops,  and  queer  brown  stippled 
points  and  ridges,  which  are  house  gables  and  roof-trees, 
not  quite  gone  under.  One  almost  forgets,  in  the  interest 
of  the  spectacle,  what  misery  it  means  to  the  owners  of  the 
gables  and  roof-trees. 

At  Washougal  Landing,  on  the  morning  when  we  went 
up  the  river,  all  that  was  to  be  seen  of  the  warehouse  on 
the  wharf  at  which  we  should  have  made  landing  was  the 
narrow  ridge-line  of  its  roof;  and  this  was  at  least  a  third 
of  a  mile  out  from  shore.  The  boat  stopped,  and  the 
passengers  were  rowed  out  in  boats  and  canoes,  steering 
around  among  tree-tops  and  houses  as  best  they  might. 

The  true  shore-line  of  the  river  we  never  once  saw ;  but 
it  cannot  be  so  beautiful  as  was  the  freshet's  shore  of 
upper  banks  and  terraces,  —  dark  forests  at  top,  shifting 
shades  of  blue  in  every  rift  between  the  hills,  iridescent 
rainbow  colors  on  the  slopes,  and  gray  clouds,  white-edged, 
piled  up  in  masses  above  them,  all  floating  apace  with 
us,  and  changing  tone  and  tint  oftener  than  we  changed 
course. 

As  we  approached  the  Cascade  Mountains,  the  scenery 
grew  grander  with  every  mile.  The  river  cuts  through  this 
range  in  a  winding  canon,  whose  sides  for  a  space  of  four 
or  five  miles  are  from  three  to  four  thousand  feet  high. 
But  the  ch«.rm  of  this  pass  is  not  so  much  in  the  height 
and  grando*ir  as  in  the  beauty  of  its  walls.  They  vary  in 
color  and  angle,  and  light  and  shadow,  each  second,  —  per- 
pendicular rock  fronts,  mossy  brown  ;  shelves  of  velvety 
greenness  and  ledges  of  glistening  red  or  black  stone 
thrown,  across  ;  great  basaltic  columns  fluted  as  by  a  chisel ; 
Jutting  tables  of  rock  carpeted  with  yellow  and  brown 
lichen  ,  turrets  standing  out  with  firs  growing  on  them  ; 
bosky  points  of  cottonwood  trees  ;  yellow  and  white  blos- 
soms and  curtains  of  ferns,  waving  out,  hanging  over  ;  and 
towering  above  all  these,  peaks  and  summits  wrapped  in 
fleecy  clouds.  Looking  ahead,  we  could  see  sometimes 


138  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

only  castellated  mountain  lines,  meeting  across  the  river, 
like  walls ;  as  we  advanced  they  retreated,  and  opened 
with  new  vistas  at  each  opening.  Shining  threads  of  wa- 
ter spun  down  in  the  highest  places,  sometimes  falling 
sheer  to  the  river,  sometimes  sinking  out  of  sight  in  forest 
depths  midway  down,  like  the  famed  fosses  of  the  Norway 
fjords.  Long  sky-lines  of  pines  and  firs,  which  we  knew 
to  be  from  one  hundred  to  three  hundred  feet  tall,  looked 
in  the  aerial  perspective  no  more  than  a  mossy  border 
along  the  wall.  A  little  girl,  looking  up  at  them,  gave  by 
one  aVtless  exclamation  a  true  idea  of  this  effect.  "  Oh," 
she  cried,  u  they  look  just  as  if  you  could  pick  a  little  bunch 
of  them."  At  "intervals  along  the  right-hand  shore  were 
to  be  seen  the  white-tented  encampments  of  the  Chinese 
laborers  on  the  road  which  the  Northern  Pacific  Railroad 
Company  is  building  to  link  St.  Paul  with  Puget  Sound. 
A  force  of  three  thousand  Chinamen  and  two  thousand 
whites  is  at  work  on  this  river  division,  and  the  road  is  be- 
ing pushed  forward  with  great  rapidity.  The  track  looked 
in  places  as  if  it  were  not  one  inch  out  of  the  water,  though 
it  was  twenty  feet ;  and  tunnels  which  were  a  hundred  and 
thirty  feet  high  looked  only  like  oven  mouths.  It  has  been 
a  hard  road  to  build,  costing  in  some  parts  sixty-five  thou- 
sand dollars  a  mile.  One  spot  was  pointed  out  to  us  where 
twenty  tons  of  powder  had  been  put  in,  in  seven  drifts, 
and  one  hundred  and  fort}'  cubic  yards  of  rock  and  soil 
blown  at  one  blast  into  the  river.  It  is  an  odd  thing  that 
huge  blasts  like  this  make  little  noise,  only  a  slight  puff; 
whereas  small  blasts  make  the  hills  ring  and  echo  with  their 
racket. 

Between  the  lower  cascades  and  the  upper  cascades  is  a 
portage  of  six  miles,  past  fierce  waters,  in  which  a  boat 
could  scarcely  live.  Here  we  took  cars ;  they  were  over- 
full, and  we  felt  ourselves  much  aggrieved  at  being  obliged 
to  make  the  short  journey  standing  on  one  of  the 
crowded  platforms.  It  proved  to  be  only  another  instance 
of  the  good  things  caught  on  chances.  Next  me  stood  an 
old  couple,  the  man's  neck  so  burnt  and  wrinkled  it  looked 
like  fiery  red  alligator's  skin ;  his  clothes,  evidently  his 
best,  donned  for  a  journey,  were  of  a  fashion  so  long  gone 
by  that  they  had  a  quaint  dignit}T.  The  woman  wore  a 
checked  calico  sun-bonnet,  and  a  green  merino  gown  of  as 


CHANCE  DAYS  IN  OREGON.  139 

quaint  a  fashion  as  her  husband's  coat.  With  them  was  a 
veritable  Leather  Stocking,  —  an  old  farmer,  whose  flannel 
shirt,  tied  loosely  at  the  throat  with  a  bit  of  twine,  fell 
open,  and  showed  a  broad  hairy  breast  of  which  a  gladiator 
might  have  been  proud. 

The  cars  jolted  heavily,  making  it  hard  to  keep  one's 
footing :  and  the  old  man  came  near  being  shaken  off  the 
step.  Recovering  himself,  he  said,  laughing,  to  his 
friend,  — 

"  Anyhow,  it's  easier  'n  abuckin'  Ca^-use  horse." 

"Yes,"  assented  the  other.  "  T  ain't  much  like  '49, 
is  it?" 

"  Were  you  here  in  '49  ?  "  I  asked  eagerly. 

"  '49  !  "  he  repeated  scornfulry.  "  I  was  here  in  '47. 
I  was  seven  months  comin'  across  from  Iowa  to  Oregon 
City  in  an  ox  team  ;  an'  we  're  livin'  on  that  same  section 
we  took  up  then  ;  an'  I  reckon  there  hain't  nobodv  got  a 
lien  on  to  it  yet.  We've  raised  nine  children,  an'  the 
youngest  on  em  's  twenty-one.  M}'  woman  's  been  sick  for 
two  or  three  years  ;  this  is  the  first  time  I  've  got  her  out. 
Thought  we  'd  go  down  to  Columbus,  an'  get  a  little  pleas- 
ure, if  we  can.  We  used  to  come  up  to  this  portage  in 
boats,  an'  then  pack  everything  on  horses  an'  ride  across." 

••We  wore  buckskin  clo'es  in  those  days,"  interrupted 
Leather  .Stocking,  "and  spurs  with  bells;  needn't  do 
more  'n  jingle  the  bells,  'n'  the  horse  'd  start.  I  'd  like  to 
see  them  times  back  agen,  too.  I  vow  I  'm  put  to  't  now 
to  know  where  to  go.  This  civilyzatiou,"  with  an  inde- 
scribably sarcastic  emphasis  on  the  third  syllable,  "is  too 
much  for  me.  I  don't  want  to  live  where  I  can't  go  out 
'n'  kill  a  deer  before  breakfast  an}'  mornin'  I  take  a  no- 
tion to." 

k '  Were  there  many  Indians  here  in  those  days  ? "  I 
asked. 

"  Many  Injuns?"  he  retorted  ;  "  why,  't  was  all  Injuns. 
All  this  country  'long  here  was  jest  full  on  'em." 

"  How  did  you  find  them?" 

"  Jest 's  civil 's  any  people  in  the  world  ;  never  had  no 
trouble  with  'cm.  Nobody  never  did  have  any  thet  treated 
'em  fair.  I  tell  ye,  it  's  jest  with  thefa  's  't  is  with  cattle. 
Now  there'll  be  one  man  raise  cattle,  an'  be  real  mean 
with  'cm  :  an'  they'll  all  hook,  an'  kick,  an'  break  fences, 


140  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

an'  run  away.  An'  there  '11  be  another,  an'  his  cattle  '11 
'all  be  kind,  an'  come  ter  yer  when  you  call  'em.  I  don't 
never  want  to  know  anythin'  more  about  a  man  than  the 
way  his  stock  acts.  I  hain't  got  a  critter  that  won't  come 
up  by  its  name  an'  lick  my  hand.  An'  it 's  jest  so  with 
folks.  Ef  a  man  's  mean  to  you,  yer  goin'  to  be  mean  to 
him,  every  time.  The  great  thing  with  Injuns  is,  never  to 
tell  'em  a  yarn.  If  yer  deceive  'em  once,  they  won't  ever 
trust  yer  again,  's  long  's  yer  live,  an'  you  can't  trust  them 
either.  Oh,  I  know  Injuns,  I  tell  3'ou.  I  've  been  among 
'em  here  more  'n  thirty  }~ear,  an'  I  never  had  the  first  trouble 
yet.  There  's  been  troubles,  but  I  wa'n't  in  'em.  It 's 
been  the  white  people's  fault  every  time." 

"  Did  you  ever  know  Chief  Joseph  ?"  I  asked. 

"  What,  old  Jo !  You  bet  I  knew  him.  He  's  an  A 
No.  1  Injun,  he  is.  He  's  real  honorable.  Why,  I  got 
lost  once,  an'  I  came  right  on  his  camp  before  I  knowed 
it,  an'  the  Injuns  they  grabbed  me  :  't  was  night,  'n'  I  was 
kind  o'  creepin'  along  cautious,  an'  the  first  thing  I  knew 
there  was  an  Injun  had  me  on  each  side,  an'  they  jest 
marched  me  up  to  Jo's  tent,  to  know  what  the}7  should  do 
with  me.  I  wa'n't  a  mite  afraid  ;  I  jest  looked  him  right 
square  in  the  eye.  That 's  another  thing  with  Injuns ; 
3'ou  've  got  to  look  'em  in  the  eye,  or  they  won't  trust  ye. 
Well,  Jo,  he  took  up  a  torch,  a  pine  knot  he  had  burnin', 
and  he  held  it  close't  up  to  my  face,  and  looked  me  up  an' 
down,  an'  down  an'  up  ;  an'  I  never  flinched  ;  I  jest  looked 
him  up  an*  down  's  good  's  he  did  me  ;  'n'  then  he  set  the 
knot  down,  'n'  told  the  men  it  was  all  right,  —  I  was 
'  turn  turn  ; '  that  meant  I  was  good  heart ;  'n'  they  gave  me 
all  I  could  eat,  'n'  a  guide  to  show  me  my  way,  next  day, 
'n'  I  could  n't  make  Jo  nor  any  of  'em  take  one  cent.  I  had 
a  kind  o'  comforter  o'  red  yarn,  I  wore  round  my  neck  ;  an' 
at  last  I  got  Jo  to  take  that,  jest  as  a  kind  o'  momento."  ; 

The  old  man  was  greatly  indignant  to  hear  that  Chief 
Joseph  was  in  Indian  Territory.  He  had  been  out  of  the 
State  at  the  time  of  the  Nez  Perce  war,  and  had  not  heard 
of  Joseph's  fate. 

41  Well,  that  was  a  dirty  mean  trick  !  "  he  exclaimed,  — 
"  a  dirty  mean  trick  !  I  don't  care  who  done  it." 

Then  he  told  me  of  another  Indian  chief  he  had  known 
well,  —  "Ercutch"  by  name.  This  chief  was  always  a 


CHANCE  DAYS  IN  OREGON.  141 

warm  friend  of  tlie  whites  ;  again  and  again  he  had  warned 
them  of  clanger  from  hostile  Indians.  "  Why,  when  he 
died,  there  wa'n't  a  white  woman  in  all  this  country  that 
did  n't  mourn  's  if  she  'd  lost  a  friend  ;  they  felt  safe  's 
long  's  he  was  round.  "When  he  knew  he  was  d}'in'  he  jest 
bade  all  his  friends  good-by.  Said  he,  '  Good-by !  I  'm 
goin'  to  the  Great  Spirit ; '  an'  then  he  named  over  each 
friend  he  had,  Injuns  an'  whites,  each  one  by  name,  and 
said  good-by  after  each  name." 

It  was  a  strange  half-hour,  rocking  and  jolting  on  this 
crowded  car  platform,  the  splendid  tossing  and  foaming 
river  with  its  rocks  and  islands  on  one  hand,  high  cliffs 
and  fir  forests  on  the  other ;  these  three  weather-beaten, 
eager,  aged  faces  by  my  side,  with  their  shrewd  old  voices 
telling  such  reminiscences,  and  rising  shrill  above  the  din 
of  the  cars. 

From  the  upper  cascades  to  the  Dalles,  by  boat  again ; 
a  splendid  forty  miles'  run,  through  the  mountain-pass,  its 
walls  now  gradually  lowering,  and,  on  the  Washington 
Territory  side  of  the  river,  terraces  and  slopes  of  cleared 
lands  and  occasional  settlements.  Great  numbers  of  drift- 
logs  passed  us  here,  coming  down  apace,  from  the  rush  of 
the  Dalles  above.  Every  now  and  then  one  would  get 
tangled  in  the  bushes  and  roots  on  the  shore,  swing  in, 
and  lodge  tight  to  await  the  next  freshet. 

The  i;  log  "  of  one  of  these  driftwood  voyages  would  be 
interesting  ;  a  tree  trunk  may  be  ten  years  getting  down  to 
the  sea,  or  it  may  swirl  down  in  a  week.  It  is  one  of  the 
businesses  along  the  river  to  catch  them,  and  pull  them  in 
to  shore,  and  much  money  is  made  at  it.  One  lucky  fisher 
of  logs,  on  the  Snake  River  Fork,  once  drew  ashore  six 
hundred  cords  in  a  single  }-ear.  Sometimes  a  whole  boom 
gets  loose  from  its  moorings,  and  comes  down  stream, 
without  breaking  up.  This  is  a  godsend  to  anybod}-  who 
can  head  it  off  and  tow  it  in  shore ;  for  by  the  law  of  the 
river  he  is  entitled  to  one  half  the  value  of  the  logs. 

At  the  Dalles  is  another  short  portage  of  twelve  miles, 
past  a  portion  of  the  river  which,  though  less  grand  than 
its  plunge  through  the  Cascade  Mountains,  is  far  more 
unique  and  wonderful.  The  waters  here  are  stripped  and 
shred  into  countless  zigzagging  torrents,  boiling  along 
through  labyrinths  of  black  lava  rocks  and  slabs.  There 


142  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

is  nothing  in  all  Nature  so  gloomy,  so  weird,  as  volcanic 
slag ;  and  the  piles,  ridges,  walls,  palisades  of  it  thrown  up 
at  this  point  look  like  the  roof-trees,  chimneys,  turrets  of 
a  half-engulfed  Pandemonium.  Dark  slaty  and  gray  tints 
spread  over  the  whole  shore,  also ;  it  is  all  volcanic  matter, 
oozed  or  boiled  over,  and  hardened  into  rigid  shapes  of 
death  and  destruction.  The  place  is  terrible  to  see.  Fit- 
ting in  well  with  the  desolateness  of  the  region  was  a 
group  of  half-naked  Indians  crouching  on  the  rocks,  gaunt 
and  wretched,  fishing  for  salmon  ;  the  hollows  in  the  rocks 
about  them  filled  with  the  bright  vermilion-colored  salmon 
spawn,  spread  out  to  dr}r.  The  twilight  was  nearly  over 
as  we  sped  by,  and  the  deepening  dai'kness  added  mo- 
mently to  the  gloom  of  the  scene. 

At  Celilo,  just  above  the  Dalles,  we  took  boat  again  for 
Umatilla,  one  hundred  miles  farther  up  the  river. 

Next  morning  we  were  still  among  lava  beds :  on  the 
Washington  Territory  side,  low,  rolling  shores,  or  slanting 
slopes  with  terraces,  and  tufty  brown  surfaces  broken  by 
ridges  and  points  of  the  black  slag ;  on  the  Oregon  side, 
high  brown  cliffs  mottled  with  red  and  yellow  lichens,  and 
great  beaches  and  dunes  of  sand,  which  had  blown  into 
windrows  and  curving  hillock  lines  as  on  the  sea-shore. 
This  sand  is  a  terrible  enemy  for  a  railroad  to  fight.  In  a 
few  hours,  sometimes,  rods  of  the  track  are  buried  by  it 
as  deep  as  by  snow  in  the  fiercest  winter  storms. 

The  first  picture  I  saw  from  my  state-room  windows, 
this  morning,  was  an  Indian  standing  on  a  narrow  plank 
shelf  that  was  let  down  by  ropes  over  a  perpendicular  rock 
front,  some  fifty  feet  high.  There  he  stood,  as  composed 
as  if  he  were  on  terra  Jirma,  bending  over  towards  the 
water,  and  flinging  in  his  salmon  net.  On  the  rocks  above 
him  sat  the  women  of  his  family,  spreading  the  salmon  to 
dry.  We  were  within  so  short  a  distance  of  the  banks  that 
friendly  smiles  could  be  distinctly  seen ;  and  one  of  the 
younger  squaws,  laughing  back  at  the  lookers-on  on  deck, 
picked  up  a  salmon,  and  waving  it  in  her  right  hand  ran 
swiftly  along  towards  an  outfitting  point.  She  was  a  gay 
creature,  with  scarlet  fringed  leggings,  a  pale  green  blan- 
ket, and  on  her  head  a  twisted  handkerchief  of  a  fine  old 
Duror  red.  As  she  poised  herself,  and  braced  backwards 
to  throw  the  salmon  on  deck,  she  was  a  superb  ll'_i'inx' 


CHANCE  DAYS  IN  OREGON,  143 

against  the  sky ;  she  did  not  throw  straight,  and  the  fish 
fell  a  few  inches  short  of  reaching  the  boat.  As  it  struck 
the  water  she  made  a  petulant  little  gesture  of  disappoint- 
ment, like  a  child,  threw  up  her  hands,  turned,  and  ran 
back  to  her  work. 

At  Umatilla,  being  forced  again  to  "make  option  which 
of  two,"  we  reluctantly  turned  back,  leaving  the  beautiful 
Walla  Walla  region  unvisited,  for  the  sake  of  seeing  Puget 
Sound.  The  Walla  Walla  region  is  said  to  be  the  finest 
stretch  of  wheat  country  in  the  world.  Lava  slag,  when 
decomposed,  makes  the  richest  of  soil,  — deep  and  seem- 
ingly of  inexhaustible  fertility.  A  failure  of  harvests  is 
said  never  to  have  been  known  in  that  country  ;  the  aver- 
age yield  of  wheat  is  thirty-five  to  fort}7  bushels  an  acre, 
and  oats  have  yielded  a  hundred  bushels.  Apples  and 
peaches  thrive,  and  are  of  a  superior  quality.  The  country 
is  well  watered,  and  has  fine  rolling  plateaus  from  fifteen 
hundred  to  three  thousand  feet  high,  giving  a  climate 
neither  too  cold  in  winter  nor  too  hot  in  summer,  and  of  a 
bracing  quality  not  found  nearer  the  sea.  Hearing  all  the 
unquestionable  tributes  to  the  beauty  and  value  of  this 
Walla  Walla  region,  I  could  not  but  recall  some  of  Chief 
Joseph's  pleas  that  a  small  share  of  it  should  be  left  in 
the  possession  of  those  who  once  owned  it  all. 

From  our  pilot,  on  the  way  down,  I  heard  an  Indian 
stor}*,  too  touching  to  be  forgotten,  though  too  long  to  tell 
here  except  in  briefest  outline.  As  we  were  passing  a 
little  village,  half  under  water,  he  exclaimed,  looking  ear- 
nestly at  a  small  building  to  whose  window-sills  the  water 
nearly  reached  :  "  Well,  I  declare,  Lucy 's  been  driven  out 
of  her  house  this  time.  I  was  wondering  why  I  did  n't 
see  her  handkerchief  a-waving.  She  always  waves  to  me 
when  I  go  by."  Then  he  told  me  Lucy's  story. 

She  was  a  California  Indian,  probably  of  the  Tulares, 
and  migrated  to  Oregon  with  her  family  thirty  years  ago. 
She  was  then  a  young  girl,  and  said  to  be  the  handsomest 
squaw  ever  seen  in  Oregon.  In  those  days  white  men  in 
wildernesses  thought  it  small  shame,  if  any,  to  take  Indian 
women  to  live  with  them  as  wives,  and  Lucy  was  much 
sought  and  wooed.  But  she  seems  to  have  had  uncommon 
virtue  or  coldness,  for  she  resisted  all  such  approaches  foi 
a  long  time. 


144  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

Finally,  a  man  named  Pomeroy  appeared  ;  and,  as  Lucy 
said  afterward,  as  soon  as  she  looked  at  him,  she  knew  he 
was  her  "turn  turn  man,"  and  she  must  go  with  him.  He 
had  a  small  sloop,  and  Lucy  became  its  mate.  They  two 
alone  ran  it  for  several  years  up  and  down  the  river.  He 
established  a  little  trading-post,  and  Lucy  always  took 
charge  of  that  when  he  went  to  buy  goods.  When  gold 
was  discovered  at  Ringgold  Bar,  Lucj-  went  there,  worked 
with  a  rocker  like  a  man,  and  washed  out  hundreds  of  dol- 
lars' worth  of  gold,  all  which  she  gave  to  Pomeroy.  "With 
it  he  built  a  fine  schooner  and  enlarged  his  business,  the 
faithful  Lucy  working  always  at  his  side  and  bidding.  At 
last,  after  eight  or  ten  years,  he  grew  weary  of  her  and  of 
the  country,  and  made  up  his  mind  to  go  to  California. 
But  he  had  not  the  heart  to  tell  Lucy  he  meant  to  leave 
her.  The  pilot  who  told  me  this  story  was  at  that  time 
captain  of  a  schooner  on  the  river.  Pomeroj-  came  to  him 
one  day,  and  asked  him  to  move  Lucy  and  her  effects  down 
to  Columbus.  He  said  he  had  told  "her  that  she  must  go  and 
live  there  with  her  relatives,  while  he  went  to  California 
and  looked  about,  and  then  he  would  send  for  her.  The 
poor  creature,  who  had  no  idea  of  treachery,  came  on 
board  cheerfully  and  willingly,  and  he  set  her  off  at  Colum- 
bus. This  was  in  the  early  spring.  Week  after  week, 
month  after  month,  whenever  his  schooner  stopped  there, 
Lucy  was  on  the  shore,  asking  if  he  had  heard  from 
Pomeroy.  For  a  long  time,  he  said,  he  could  n't  bear  to 
tell  her.  At  last  he  did  ;  but  she  would  not  believe  him. 
Winter  came  on.  She  had  got  a  few  boards  together  and 
built  herself  a  sort  of  hut,  near  a  house  where  lived  an 
eccentric  old  bachelor,  who  finally  took  compassion  on  her, 
and  to  save  her  from  freezing  let  her  come  into  his  shanty 
to  sleep.  He  was  a  mysterious  old  man,  a  recluse,  with  a 
morbid  aversion  to  women  ;  and  at  the  outset  it  was  a  great 
struggle  for  him  to  let  even  an  Indian  woman  cross  his 
threshold.  But  little  by  little  Lucy  won  her  way :  first 
she  washed  the  dishes  ;  then  she  would  timidly  help  at  the 
cooking.  Faithful,  patient,  unpresuming,  at  last  she  grew 
to  be  realty  the  old  man's  housekeeper  as  well  as  servant. 
He  lost  his  health,  and  became  blind.  Lucy  took  care  of 
him  till  he  died,  and  followed  him  to  the  grave,  his  only 
mourner,  —  the  only  human  being  in  the  country  with  whom 


CHANCE  DAYS  IN  OREGON.  145 

he  had  any  tie.  He  left  her  his  little  house  and  a  few 
hundred  dollars,  —  all  he  had ;  and  there  she  is  still,  alone, 
making  out  to  live  by  doing  whatever  work  she  can  find  in 
the  neighborhood.  Everybody  respects  her ;  she  is  known 
as  "Lucy"  up  and  down  the  river.  "I  did  my  best  to 
hire  her  to  come  and  keep  house  for  my  wife,  last  year," 
said  the  pilot.  "I'd  rather  have  her  for  nurse  or  cook 
than  any  white  woman  in  Oregon.  But  she  would  n't 
come.  I  don't  know  as  she 's  done  looking  for  Pomeroy 
to  come  back  yet,  and  she 's  going  to  stay  just  where  he 
left  her.  She  never  misses  a  time,  waving  to  me,  when 
she  knows  what  boat  I  'm  on  ;  and  there  is  n't  much  going 
on  on  the  river  she  don't  know." 

It  was  dusk  when  the  pilot  finished  telling  Lucy's  story. 
We  were  shooting  along  through  wild  passages  of  water 
called  Hell  Gate,  just  above  the  Dalles.  In  the  dim  light 
the  basaltic  columnar  cliffs  looked  like  grooved  ebony. 
One  of  the  pinnacles  has  a  strange  resemblance  to  the  fig- 
ure of  an  Indian.  It  is  called  the  Chief,  and  the  semblance 
is  startling,  —  a  colossal  figure,  with  a  plume-crowned 
head,  turned  as  if  gazing  backward  over  the  shoulder ;  the 
attitude  stately,  the  drapery  graceful,  and  the  whole  ex- 
pression one  of  profound  and  dignified  sorrow.  It  seemed 
a  strangely  fitting  emphasis  to  the  story  of  the  faithful  In- 
dian woman. 

It  was  near  midnight  when  we  passed  the  Dalles.  Our 
train  was  late,  and  dashed  on  at  its  swiftest.  Fitful  light 
came  from  a  wisp  of  a  new  moon  and  one  star ;  they 
seemed  tossing  in  a  tumultuous  sea  of  dark  clouds.  In 
this  glimmering  darkness  the  lava  walls  and  ridges  stood 
up,  ink}T  black ;  the  foaming  water  looked  like  molten 
steel,  the  whole  region  more  ghastly  and  terrible  than 
before. 

There  is  a  village  of  three  thousand  inhabitants  at  the 
Dalles.  The  houses  are  set  among  lava  hillocks  and 
ridges.  The  fields  seemed  bubbled  with  lava,  their  black- 
ened surfaces  stippled  in  with  yellow  and  brown.  High 
up  above  are  wheat-fields  in  clearings,  reaching  to  the  sky- 
line of  the  hills.  Great  slopes  of  crumbling  and  disinte- 
grating lava  rock  spread  superb  purple  and  slate  colors 
between  the  greens  of  forests  and  wheat-fields.  It  is  one 
of  the  memorable  pictures  on  the  Columbia. 
10 


146  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON. 

To  go  both  up  and  down  a  river  is  a  good  deal  like 
spending  a  summer  and  a  winter  in  a  place,  so  great  differ- 
ence does  it  make  when  right  hand  and  left  shift  sides,  and 
everything  is  seen  from  a  new  stand-point. 

The  Columbia  River  scenery  is  taken  at  its  best  going 
up,  especially  the  gradual  crescendo  of  the  Cascade  Moun- 
tain region,  which  is  far  tamer  entered  from  above.  But 
we  had  a  compensation  in  the  clearer  sky  and  lifted  clouds, 
which  gave  us  the  more  distant  snow-peaks  in  all  their 
glory ;  and  our  run  down  from  the  Dalles  to  Portland  was 
the  best  day  of  our  three  on  the  river.  Our  steamer  was 
steered  by  hydraulic  pressure ;  and  it  was  a  wonderful 
thing  to  sit  in  the  pilot-house  and  see  the  slight  touch  of  a 
finger  on  the  shining  lever  sway  the  great  boat  in  a  sec- 
ond. A  baby's  hand  is  strong  enough  to  steer  the  largest 
steamboat  by  this  instrument.  It  could  turn  the  boat,  the 
captain  said,  in  a  maelstrom,  where  four  men  together 
could  not  budge  the  rudder-wheel. 

The  history  of  the  Columbia  River  navigation  would 
make  by  itself  an  interesting  chapter.  It  dates  back  to 
1792,  when  a  Boston  ship  and  a  Boston  captain  first  sailed 
up  the  river.  A  curious  bit  of  history  in  regard  to  that 
ship  is  to  be  found  in  the  archives  of  the  old  Spanish  gov- 
ernment in  California.  Whenever  a  royal  decree  was  is- 
sued in  Madrid  in  regard  to  the  Indies  or  New  Spain,  a 
copy  of  it  was  sent  to  every  viceroy  in  the  Spanish  Domin- 
ions ;  he  communicated  it  to  his  next  subordinate,  who  in 
turn  sent  it  to  all  the  governors,  and  so  on,  till  the  decree 
reached  every  corner  of  the  king's  provinces.  In  1789 
there  was  sent  from  Madrid,  by  ship  to  Mexico,  and  thence 
by  courier  to  California,  and  by  Fages,  the  California  gov- 
ernor, to  every  port  in  California,  the  following  order :  — 

"^Whenever  there  may  arrive  at  the  port  of  San  Francisco 
a  ship  named  the  'Columbia,'  said  to  belong  to  General  Wash- 
ington of  the  American  States,  commanded  by  John  Kendrick, 
which  sailed  from  Boston  in  1787,  bound  on  a  voyage  of  dis- 
covery to  the  Russian  settlements  on  the  northern  coast  of  the 
peninsula,  you  will  cause  said  vessel  to  be  examined  with  cau- 
tion and  delicacy,  using  for  this  purpose  a  small  boat  which 
you  have  in  your  possession." 

Two  months  after  this  order  was  promulgated  in  the 
Santa  Barbara  presidio,  Captain  Gray,  of  the  ship  "  Wash- 


CHANCE  DAYS  IN  OREGON.  147 

ington,"  and  Captain  Kendrick  of  the  ship  "  Columbia," 
changed  ships  in  Wickmanish  harbor.  Captain  Gray  took 
the  "  Columbia"  to  China,  and  did  not  sail  into  San  Fran- 
cisco harbor  at  all,  whereb}-  he  escaped  being  "  examined 
with  caution  and  delicacy "  by  the  small  boat  in  possession 
of  the  San  Francisco  garrison.  Not  till  the  llth  of  May, 
1792,  did  he  return  and  sail  up  the  Columbia  River,  then 
called  the  Oregon.  He  renamed  it,  for  his  ship,  "  Colum- 
bia's River ;  "  but  the  possessive  was  soon  dropped. 

When  one  looks  at  the  crowded  rows  of  steamboats  at 
the  Portland  wharves  now,  it  is  hard  to  realize  that  it  is 
only  thirty-two  years  since  the  first  one  was  launched 
there.  Two  were  built  and  launched  in  one  year,  the 
4 '  Columbia  "  and  the  k  k  Lot  Whitcomb."  The  "  Lot  Whit- 
comb  "  was  launched  on  Christmas  Da}' ;  there  were  three 
days'  feasting  and  dancing,  and  people  gathered  from  all 
parts  of  the  Territory  to  celebrate  the  occasion. 

It  is  also  hard  to  realize,  when  standing  on  the  Portland 
wharves,  that  it  is  less  than  fifty  years  since  there  were 
angry  discussions  in  the  United  States  Congress  as  to 
whether  or  not  it  were  worth  while  to  obtain  Oregon  as  a 
possession,  and  in  the  Eastern  States  manuals  were  being 
freely  distributed,  bearing  such  titles  as  this :  "A  general 
circular  to  all  persons  of  good  character  wishing  to  emi- 
grate to  the  Oregon  Territoiy."  Even  those  statesmen  who 
were  most  earnest  in  favor  of  the  securing  of  Oregon  did 
not  perceive  the  true  nature  of  its  value.  One  of  Benton's 
most  enthusiastic  predictions  was  that  an  "  emporium  of 
Asiatic  commerce  "  would  be  situated  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Columbia,  and  that  "  a  stream  of  Asiatic  trade  would  pour 
into  the  valle}'  of  the  Mississippi  through  the  channel  of 
Oregon."  But  the  future  of  Oregon  and  Washington  rests 
not  on  any  transmission  of  the  riches  of  other  countries, 
however  important  an  element  in  their  prosperity  that  may 
ultimately  become.  Their  true  riches  are  their  own  and 
inalienable.  They  are  to  be  among  the  great  feeders  of 
the  earth.  Gold  and  silver  values  are  unsteady  and  capri- 
cious ;  intrigues  can  overthrow  them ;  markets  can  be 
glutted,  and  mines  fail.  But  bread  the  nations  of  the 
earth  must  have.  The  bread-yielder  controls  the  situation 
always.  Given  a  soil  which  can  grow  wheat  year  after 
year  with  no  apparent  fatigue  or  exhaustion,  a  climate 


148  CALIFORNIA  AND   OREGON. 

where  rains  never  fail  and  seed-time  and  harvest  are  uni- 
formly certain,  and  conditions  are  created  under  which  the 
future  success  and  wealth  of  a  country  ma}'  be  predicted 
just  as  surely  as  the  movements  of  the  planets  in  the 
heavens. 

There  are  three  great  valleys  in  western  Oregon, — 
the  Willamette,  the  Umpqua,  and  the  Rogue  River.  The 
Willamette  is  the  largest,  being  sixty  miles  long  by  one 
hundred  and  fifty  wide.  The  Umpqua  and  Rogue  River 
together  contain  over  a  million  of  acres.  These  valleys  are 
natural  gardens ;  fertile  to  luxuriance,  and  watered  by  all 
the  westward  drainage  of  the  great  Cascade  Range,  the 
Andes  of  North  America,  a  continuation  of  the  Sierra  Ne- 
vada. The  Coast  Range  Mountains  lie  west  of  these  val- 
leys, breaking,  but  not  shutting  out,  the  influence  of  the 
sea  air  and  fogs.  This  valley  region  between  these  two 
ranges  contains  less  than  a  third  of  the  area  of  Washing- 
ton and  Oregon.  The  country  east  of  the  Cascade  Moun- 
tains is  no  less  fertile,  but  has  a  drier  climate,  colder 
winters,  and  hotter  summers.  Its  elevation  is  from  two  to 
four  thousand  feet,  —  probably  the  very  best  elevations  for 
health.  A  comparison  of  statistics  of  yearly  death-rates 
cannot  be  made  with  absolute  fairness  between  old  and 
thick-settled  and  new  and  sparse!}'  settled  countries.  Al- 
lowance must  be  made  for  the  probably  superior  health  and 
strength  of  the  men  and  women  who  have  had  the  youth 
and  energy  to  go  forward  as  pioneers.  But,  making  all 
due  allowance  for  these,  there  still  remains  difference 
enough  to  startle  one  between  the  death-rates  in  some  of 
the  Atlantic  States  and  in  these  infant  empires  of  the  New 
Northwest.  The  yearly  death-rate  in  Massachusetts  is  one 
out  of  fifty-seven  ;  in  Vermont  one  out  of  ninety-seven  ;  in 
Oregon  one  out  of  one  hundred  and  sevent}--two ;  and  in 
Washington  Territory  one  out  of  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
eight. 

As  we  glided  slowly  to  anchorage  in  Portland  harbor, 
five  dazzling  snow-white  peaks  were  in  sight  on  the  hori- 
zon, —  Mount  Hood,  of  peerless  shape,  strong  as  if  it  were 
a  bulwark  of  the  very  heavens  themselves,  }*et  graceful 
and  sharp-cut  as  Egypt's  pyramids  ;  St.  Helen's,  a  little 
lower,  yet  looking  higher,  with  the  marvellous  curves  of 
its  slender  shining  cone,  bent  on  and  seemingly  into  the 


CHANCE  DAYS  IN  OREGON.  149 

sky,  like  an  intaglio  of  ice  cut  in  the  blue  ;  miles  away,  in 
the  farthest  north  and  east  horizons,  Mounts  Tacoma  and 
Adams  and  Baker,  all  gleaming  white,  and  all  seeming 
to  uphold  the  skies. 

These  eternal,  unalterable  snow-peaks  will  be  as  eternal 
and  unalterable  factors  in  the  history  of  the  country  as  in 
its  beauty  to  the  63*6.  Their  value  will  not  come  under 
any  head  of  things  reckonable  by  census,  statistics,  or 
computation,  but  it  will  be  none  the  less  real  for  that :  it  will 
be  an  element  in  the  nature  and  character  of  every  man 
and  woman  born  within  sight  of  the  radiant  splendor ;  and 
it  will  be  strange  if  it  does  not  ultimately  develop,  in  the 
empire  of  this  New  Northwest,  a  local  patriotism  and  pas* 
sionate  loyalty  to  soil  as  strong  and  lasting  as  that  which 
has  made  generations  of  Swiss  mountaineers  ready  to 
brave  death  for  a  sight  of  their  mountains. 


II. 

SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 


n. 

SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

A  BURNS  PILGRIMAGE. 

A  SHINING-BEACHED  crescent  of  country  facing  to  the 
sunset,  and  rising  higher  and  higher  to  the  east  till  it 
becomes  mountain,  is  the  county  of  Ayrshire,  fair  and 
famous  among  the  southern  Scotch  highlands.  To  a  sixty- 
mile  measure  by  air,  between  its  north  and  south  promon- 
tories, it  stretches  a  curving  coast  of  ninety ;  and  when 
Eobert  Burns  strolled  over  its  breezy  uplands,  he  saw  al- 
ways beautiful  and  mj-sterious  silver  lines  of  land  thrusting 
themselves  out  into  the  mists  of  the  sea,  pointing  to  far-off 
island  peaks,  seeming  sometimes  to  bridge  and  sometimes 
to  wall  vistas  ending  only  in  sky.  These  lines  are  as 
beautiful,  elusive,  and  luring  now  as  then,  and  in  the  in- 
alienable loyalty  of  nature  bear  testimony  to-day  to  their 
lover. 

This  is  the  greatest  crown  of  the  hero  and  the  poet 
[Other  great  men  hold  fame  by  failing  records  which  moth 
land  fire  destroy.  The  places  that  knew  them  know 
them  no  more  when  they  are  dead.  Marble  and  canvas 
and  parchment  league  in  vain  to  keep  green  the  memory 
of  him  who  did  not  love  and  consecrate  by  his  life-blood, 
in  fight  or  in  song,  the  soil  where  he  trod.  But  for  him 
who  has  done  this,  —  who  fought  well,  sang  well,  —  the 
morning  cloud,  and  the  wild  rose,  and  broken  blades  of 
grass  under  men's  feet,  become  immortal  witnesses ;  so 
imperishable,  after  all,  are  what  we  are  in  the  habit  of 
calling  the  "  perishable  things  of  this  earth." 

More  than  two  hundred  years  ago,  when  the  followers 
and  holders  of  the  different  baronies  of  Ayrshire  compared 


154  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

respective  dignities  and  values,  they  made  a  proverb  which 
ran:  — 

"  Carrick  for  a  man  ;  Kyle  for  a  coo ; 
Cunningham  for  butter  and  cheese ;  Galloway  for  woo." 

Before  the  nineteenth  century  set  in,  the  proverb  should 
have  been  changed ;  for  Kyle  is  the  land  through  which 
"  Bonnie  Doon  "  and  Irvine  Water  run,  and  there  has 
been  never  a  man  in  all  Carrick  of  whom  Carrick  can  be 
proud  as  is  Kyle  of  Robert  Burns.  It  has  been  said  that 
a  copy  of  his  poems  lies  on  every  Scotch  cottager's  shelf, 
by  the  side  of  the  Bible.  This  is  probably  not  very  far 
from  the  truth.  Certain  it  is,  that  in  the  villages  where  he 
dwelt  there  seems  to  be  no  man,  no  child,  who  does  not 
apparently  know  every  detail  of  the  life  he  lived  there, 
nearly  a  hundred  years  ago. 

"  Will  ye  be  drivin'  over  to  Tarbolton  in  the  morning?  " 
said  the  pretty  young  vice-landlady  of  the  King's  Arms  at 
Ayr,  when  I  wrote  my  name  in  her  visitors'  book  late  one 
Saturday  night. 

"  What  made  you  think  of  that?  "  I  asked,  amused. 

"  And  did  ye  not  come  on  account  o'  Burns?"  she  re- 
plied. "  There's  been  a  many  from  your  country  here  by 
reason  of  him  this  summer.  I  think  you  love  him  in 
America  a'most  as  well  as  we  do  oursel's.  It 's  vary  sel- 
dom the  English  come  to  see  any  thin'  aboot  him.  They  've 
so  man}-  poets  o'  their  own,  I  suppose,  is  the  reason  o' 
their  not  thinkin'  more  o'  Burns." 

All  that  there  was  unflattering  in  this  speech  I  forgave 
by  reason  of  the  girl's  sweet  low  voice,  pretty  gray  eyes, 
and  gentle,  refined  hospitality.  She  might  have  been  the 
daughter  of  some  country  gentleman,  welcoming  a  guest 
to  the  house  ;  and  she  took  as  much  interest  in  making 
all  the  arrangements  for  my  drive  to  Tarbolton  the  next 
morning  as  if  it  had  been  a  pleasure  excursion  for  herself. 
It  is  but  a  dull  life  she  leads,  helping  her  widowed  mother 
keep  the  King's  Arms,  —  dull,  and  unprofitable  too,  I  fear  ; 
for  it  takes  four  men-servants  and  seven  women  to  keep 
up  the  house,  and  I  saw  no  symptom  of  any  coming  or  go- 
ing of  customers  in  it.  A  stillness  as  of  a  church  on  week- 
days reigned  throughout  the  establishment.  "  At  the 
races  and  when  the  yeomanry  come,"  she  said,  there  was 


A  BURNS  PILGRIMAGE.  155 

something  to  do;  but  "in  the  winter  nothing,  except  at 
the  times  of  the  county  balls.  You  know,  ma'am,  we  've 
many  county  families  here,"  she  remarked  with  gentle 
pride,  "  and  the}-  all  stop  with  us." 

There  is  a  compensation  to  the  lower  orders  of  a  society 
where  rank  and  castes  are  fixed,  which  does  not  readily 
occur  at  first  sight  to  the  democratic  mind  naturally  re- 
belling against  such  defined  distinctions.  It  is  very  much 
to  be  questioned  whether,  in  a  republic,  the  people  who 
find  themselves  temporarily  lower  down  in  the  social  scale 
than  they  like  to  be  or  expect  to  stay,  feel,  in  their  con- 
sciousness of  the  possibility  of  rising,  half  so  much  pride 
or  satisfying  pleasure  as  do  the  lower  classes  in  Eng- 
land, for  instance,  in  their  relations  with  those  whom  they 
serve,  whose  dignity  they  seem  to  share  by  ministering 
to  it. 

The  way  from  Ayr  to  Tarbolton  must  be  greatly  changed 
since  the  day  when  the  sorrowful  Burns  family  trod  it,  go- 
ing from  the  Mount  Oliphant  farm  to  that  of  Lochlea. 
Now  it  is  for  miles  a  smooth  road,  on  which  horses'  hoofs 
ring  merrilj*,  and  neat  little  stone  houses,  with  pretty 
yards,  line  it  on  both  sides  for  some  distance.  The  ground 
rises  almost  immediately,  so  that  the  dwellers  in  these 
little  suburban  houses  get  fine  off-looks  seaward  and  a 
wholesome  breeze  in  at  their  windows.  The  houses  are 
built  joined  by  twos,  with  a  yard  in  common.  They  have 
three  rooms  besides  the  kitchen,  and  they  rent  for  twenty-- 
five pounds  a  year ;  so  no  industrious  man  of  Ayr  need  be 
badly  lodged.  Where  the  houses  leave  off,  hedges  begin, 
—  thorn  and  beech,  untrimmed  and  luxuriant,  with  great 
outbursts  of  white  honeysuckle  and  sweet-brier  at  inter- 
vals. As  far  as  the  eye  could  see  were  waving  fields  of 
wheat,  oats,  and  "rye-grass,"  which  last  being  just  ripe 
was  of  a  glorious  red  color.  The  wheat-fields  were  rich 
and  full,  sixt}-  bushels  to  the  acre.  Oats,  which  do  not 
take  so  kindly  to  the  soil  and  air,  produce  sometimes  only 
forty-eight. 

Burns  was  but  sixteen  when  his  father  moved  from 
Mount  Oliphant  to  the  Lochlea  farm,  in  the  parish  of  Tar- 
bolton. It  was  in  Tarbolton  that  he  first  went  to  dancing- 
school,  joined  the  Freemasons,  and  organized  the  club 
which,  no  doubt,  cost  him  dear,  '-The  Bachelors  of  Tar- 


156  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

bolton."  In  the  beginning  this  club  consisted  of  only  five 
members  besides  Burns  and  his  brother ;  afterward  it 
was  enlarged  to  sixteen.  Burns  drew  up  the  rules ;  and 
the  last  one  —  the  tenth  —  is  worth  remembering,  as  an 
unconscious  defining  on  his  part  of  his  ideal  of  human 
life :  — 

"  Every  man  proper  for  a  member  of  this  society  must  have  a 
friendly,  honest,  open  heart,  above  everything  dirty  or  mean, 
and  must  be  a  professed  lover  of  one  or  more  of  the  sex.  The 
proper  person  for  this  society  is  a  cheerful,  honest-hearted  lad, 
who,  if  he  has  a  friend  that  is  true,  and  a  mistress  that  is  kind, 
and  as  much  wealth  as  genteelly  to  make  both  ends  meet,  is  just 
as  happy  as  this  world  can  make  him." 

Walking  to-day  through  the  narrow  streets  of  Tarbol- 
ton,  it  is  wellnigh  impossible  to  conceive  of  such  rollick- 
ing good  cheer  having  made  abiding-place  there.  It  is  a 
close,  packed  town,  the  houses  of  stone  or  white  plaster,  — 
many  of  them  low,  squalid,  with  thatched  roofs  and  walls 
awry  ;  those  that  are  not  squa^d  are  grim.  The  streets 
are  winding  and  tangled ;  the  people  look  poor  and  dull. 
As  I  drove  up  to  the  "  Crown  Inn,"  the  place  where 
the  Tarbolton  Freemasons  meet  now,  and  where  some 
of  the  relics  of  Burns's  Freemason  days  are  kept,  the 
"  first  bells"  were  ringing  in  the  belfry  of  the  old  church 
opposite,  and  the  landlord  of  the  inn  replied  with  a  look 
of  great  embarrassment  to  my  request  to  see  the  Burns 
relics,  — 

"  It's  the  Sabbath,  mem." 

Then  he  stood  still,  scratching  his  head  for  a  few  mo- 
ments, and  then  set  off,  at  full  run,  down  the  street  without 
another  word. 

"He's  gone  to  the  head  Mason,"  explained  the  land- 
lady. "  It  takes  three  to  open  the  chest.  I  think  ye '11 
na  see  it  the  da}\"  And  she  turned  on  her  heel  with  a 
frown  and  left  me. 

"  They  make  much  account  o'  the  Sabbath  in  this  coun- 
try," said  my  driver.  "  Another  day  ye'd  do  better." 

Thinking  of  Burns's  lines  to  the  "  Unco  Guid,"  I 
strolled  over  into  the  churchyard  opposite,  to  await  the 
landlord's  return.  The  bell-ringer  had  come  down,  and 
followed  me  curiously  about  among  the  graves.  One  very 


A   BURNS  PILGRIMAGE.  157 

old  stone  had  carved  upon  it  two  high-top  boots ;  under 
these,  two  low  shoes  ;  below  these,  two  kneeling  figures,  a 
man  and  a  woman,  cut  in  high  relief;  no  inscription  of 
anv  sort. 

''What  can  it  mean?"  I  asked. 

The  bell-ringer  could  not  tell ;  it  was  so  old  nobody 
knew  anything  about  it.  His  mother,  now  ninet}-  years  of 
age,  remembered  seeing  it  when  she  was  a  child,  and  it 
looked  just  as  old  then  as  now. 

"  There 's  a  many  strange  things  in  this  gravej-ard," 
said  he ;  and  then  he  led  me  to  a  corner  where,  enclosed 
by  swinging  chains  and  stone  posts,  was  a  carefully  kept 
square  of  green  turf,  on  which  lay  a  granite  slab.  "  Every 
year  comes  the  mone}T  to  pay  for  keeping  that  grass 
green,"  he  said,  "  and  no  name  to  it.  It 's  been  going  on 
that  way  for  fifty  years." 

The  stone-wall  around  the  graveyard  was  dilapidated, 
and  in  parts  was  falling  down. 

"  I  suppose  this  old  wall  was  here  in  Burns's  time,"  I 
said. 

"Ay,  yes,"  said  the  bell-ringer ;  and  pointing  to  a  low, 
thatched  cottage  just  outside  it,  "  and  }Ton  shop  —  many 's 
the  time  he  's  been  in  it  playin'  his  tricks." 

The  landlord  of  the  inn  now  came  running  up,  with  pro- 
fuse apologies  for  the  ill  success  of  his  mission.  He  had 
been  to  the  head  Mason,  hoping  he  would  come  over  and 
assist  in  the  opening  of  the  chest,  in  which  were  kept  a 
Mason's  apron  worn  by  Burns,  some  jewels  of  his,  and 
a  book  of  minutes  kept  by  him.  But  "  bein'  's  it's  the 
Sabbath,"  and  "he's  sick  in  bed,"  and  it  was  "against 
the  rules  to  open  the  regalia  chest  unless  three  Masons 
were  present,"  the  kindly  landlord,  piling  up  reason 
after  reason,  irrespective  of  their  consistency  with  each 
other,  went  on  to  explain  that  it  would  be  impossible ; 
but  I  might  see  the  chair  in  which  Burns  always  sat. 
This  was  a  huge  oaken  chair,  black  with  age,  and  fur- 
rowed with  names  cut  deep  in  the  wood.  It  was  shaped 
and  proportioned  like  a  child's  high-chair,  and  had  pre- 
cisely such  a  rest  for  the  feet  as  is  put  on  children's 
high-chairs.  To  this  day  the  Grand  Mason  sits  in  it  at 
their  meetings,  and  will  so  long  as  the  St.  James  Lodge 
exists. 


158  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

"They've  been  offered  hundreds  of  pounds  for  that 
chair,  mem,  plain  as  it  is.  You'd  not  think  it;  but 
there's  no  money 'd  buy  it  from  the  lodge,"  said  the 
landlord. 

The  old  club-house  where  the  jolly  "Bachelors  of  Tar- 
bolton  "  met  in  Burns's  day  is  a  low,  two-roomed,  thatched 
cottage,  half  in  ruins.  The  room  where  the  bachelors 
smoked,  drank,  and  sang  is  now  little  more  than  a  cellar 
filled  with  rubbish  and  filth,  —  nothing  left  but  the  old  fire- 
place to  show  that  it  was  ever  inhabited.  In  the  other 
half  of  the  cottage  lives  a  laborer's  family,  —  father, 
mother,  and  a  young  child  :  their  one  room,  with  its  bed 
built  into  the  wall,  and  their  few  delf  dishes  on  the  dresser, 
is  probably  much  like  the  room  in  which  Burns  first  opened 
his  wondrous  eyes.  The  man  was  lying  on  the  floor  play- 
ing with  his  baby.  At  the  name  of  Burns,  he  sprang  up 
with  a  hearty  "  Ay,  weel,"  and  ran  out  in  his  blue-stocking 
feet  to  show  me  the  cellar,  of  which,  it  was  plainly  to  be 
seen,  he  was  far  prouder  than  of  his  more  comfortable 
side  of  the  house.  The  name  by  which  the  inn  was  called 
in  Burns's  day  he  did  not  know.  But  "  He 's  a  Mason  over 
there  ;  he  '11  know,"  he  cried  ;  and  before  I  could  prevent 
him,  he  had  darted,  still  shoeless,  across  the  road,  and 
asked  the  question  of  a  yet  poorer  laborer,  who  was  taking 
his  Sunday  on  his  door-sill  with  two  bairns  between  his 
knees.  He  had  heard,  but  had  "  forgotten."  "  Feyther '11 
know,"  said  the  wife,  coming  forward  with  the  third  bairn, 
a  bab}*,  in  her  arms.  "I'll  rin  an'  ask  feyther."  The  old 
man  tottered  out,  and  gazed  with  a  vacant,  feeble  look  at 
me,  while  he  replied  impatiently  to  his  daughter  :  "  Man- 
son's  Inn,  't  was  called  ;  ye  Ve  heard  it  times  eneuch." 

"  I  dare  say  you  always  drink  Burns's  health  at  the  lodge 
when  you  meet,"  I  said  to  the  laborer. 

"  Ay,  ay,  his  health 's  ay  dronkit,"  he  said,  with  a  coarse 
laugh,  "  weel  dronkit." 

A  few  rods  to  the  east,  and  down  the  very  road  Burns 
was  wont  to  come  and  go  between  Lochlea  and  Tarbolton, 
still  stands  "Willie's  mill,"  —  cottage  and  mill  and  shed 
and  barn,  all  in  one  low,  long,  oddly  joined  (or  jointed) 
building  of  irregular  heights,  like  a  telescope  pulled  out  to 
its  full  length  ;  a  little  brook  and  a  bit  of  gay  garden  iu 
front.  Iu  the  winter  the  mill  goes  by  water  from  a  lake 


A  BURNS  PILGRIMAGE.  159 

near  by  ;  in  the  summer  by  steam,  —  a  great  change  since 
the  night  when  Burns  went 

"  Todlin'  down  on  Willie's  mill,", 
and  though  he  thought  he 

"  Was  na  fou,  but  just  had  plenty," 

could  not  for  the  life  of  him  make  out  to  count  the  moon's 
horns. 

"  To  count  her  horns,  wi'  a'  my  power, 

I  set  mysel' ; 

But  whether  she  had  three  or  four 
I  could  na  tell." 

To  go  by  road  from  Tarbolton  to  Lochlea  farm  is  to  go 
around  three  sides  of  a  square,  east,  north,  and  then  west 
again.  Certain  it  is  that  Burns  never  took  so  many  super- 
fluous steps  to  do  it ;  and  as  I  drove  along  I  found  absorb- 
ing interest  in  looking  at  the  little  cluster  of  farm  buildings 
beyond  the  fields,  and  wondering  where  the  light-footed 
boy  used  to  "cut  across"  for  his  nightly  frolics.  There 
is  nothing  left  at  Lochlea  now  of  him  or  his  ;  nothing  save 
a  worn  lintel  of  the  old  barn.  The  buildings  are  all  new ; 
and  there  is  a  look  of  thrift  and  comfort  about  the  place, 
quite  unlike  the  face  it  must  have  worn  in  1784.  The 
house  stands  on  a  rising  knoll,  and  from  the  windows 
looking  westward  and  seaward  there  must  be  a  fine  horizon 
and  headlands  to  be  seen  at  sunset.  Nobody  was  at  home 
on  this  day  except  a  barefooted  servan1>girl,  who  was 
keeping  the  house  while  the  family  were  at  church.  She 
came  to  the  door  with  an  expression  of  almost  alarm,  at 
the  unwonted  apparition  of  a  carriage  driving  down  the 
lane  on  Sunday,  and  a  stranger  coming  in  the  name  of  a 
man  dead  so  long  ago.  She  evidently  knew  nothing  of 
Burns  except  that,  for  some  reason  connected  with  him, 
the  old  lintel  was  kept  and  shown.  She  was  impatient  of 
the  interruption  of  her  Sabbath,  and  all  the  while  she  was 
speaking  kept  her  finger  in  her  book  —  "Footprints  of 
Jesus  "  —  at  the  place  where  she  had  been  reading,  and 
glanced  at  it  continually,  as  if  it  were  an  amulet  which 
could  keep  her  from  harm  through  the  worldly  interlude 
into  which  she  had  been  forced. 


160  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

"  It's  a  pity  ye  came  on  the  S abba-day,"  remarked  the 
driver  again,  as  we  drove  away  from  Lochlea.  "The 
country  people  'ull  not  speak  on  the  Sabbath."  It  would 
have  been  useless  to  try  to  explain  to  him  that  the  specta- 
cle of  this  Scottish  "  Sabba-day"  was  of  itself  of  almost 
as  much  interest  as  the  sight  of  the  fields  in  which  Robert 
Burns  had  walked  and  worked. 

The  farm  of  Mossgiel,  which  was  Burns's  next  home 
after  Lochlea,  is  about  three  miles  from  Tarbolton,  and 
only  one  from  Mauchline.  Burns  and  his  brother  Gilbert 
had  become  tenants  of  it  a  few  months  before  their  father's 
death  in  1784.  It  was  stocked  by  the  joint  savings  of  the 
whole  family ;  and  each  member  of  the  family  was  allowed 
fair  rates  of  wages  for  all  labor  performed  on  it.  The  al- 
lowance to  Gilbert  and  to  Robert  was  seven  pounds  a 
year  each,  and  it  is  said  that  during  the  four  years  that 
Robert  lived  there,  his  expenses  never  exceeded  this 
pittance. 

To  Mossgiel  he  came  with  new  resolutions.  He  had 
already  reaped  some  bitter  harvests  from  the  wild  oats 
sown  during  the  seven  years  at  Lochlea.  He  was  no 
longer  a  boy.  He  says  of  himself  at  this  time,  — 

"I  entered  on  Mossgiel  with  a  full  resolution,  '  Come, 
go ;  I  will  be  wise.' " 

Driving  up  the  long,  straight  road  which  leads  from  the 
highway  to  the  hawthorn  Jbrtress  in  which  the  Mossgiel 
farm  buildings  stand,  one  recalls  these  words,  and  fancies 
the  brave  young  fellow  striding  up  the  field,  full  of  new 
hope  and  determination.  The  hawthorn  hedge  to-day  is 
much  higher  than  a  man's  head,  and  completely  screens 
from  the  road  the  farm-house  and  the  outbuildings  behind 
it.  The  present  tenants  have  lived  on  the  farm  forty 
years,  the  first  twenty  in  the  same  house  which  stood  there 
when  Robert  and  Gilbert  Bums  pledged  themselves  to  pay 
one  hundred  and  twenty  pounds  a  year  for  the  farm. 
When  the  house  was  rebuilt,  twenty  years  ago,  the  old 
walls  were  used  in  part,  and  the  windows  were  left  in 
the  same  places  ;  but,  instead  of  the  low,  sloping-roofed, 
garret-like  rooms  upstairs,  where  Burns  used  to  sleep  and 
write,  are  now  comfortable  chambers  of  modern  fashion. 

"Wore  you  not  sorry  to  have  the  old  house  pulled 
down?"  I  said  to  the  comely,  aged  farm- wife. 


A  BURNS  PILGRIMAGE.  161 

"  'Deed,  then,  I  was  very  prood,"  she  replied  ;  "  it  had 
na  'cooraodatioii,  and  the  thatch  took  in  the  rain  an'  all 
that  was  vile." 

In  the  best  room  of  the  house  hung  two  autograph  let- 
ters of  Burns' s  plainly  framed :  one,  his  letter  to  the  lass 

of ,  asking  her  permission  to  print  the  poem  he  had 

addressed  to  her ;  the  other,  the  original  copy  of  the 
poem.  These  were  "presented  to  the  house  by  the 
brother  of  the  lady,"  the  woman  said,  and  they  had  "  a 
great  value  now."  But  when  she  first  came  to  this  part 
of  the  country  she  was  "vaiy  soorpreezed"  to  find  the 
great  esteem  in  which  Burns's  poetry  was  held.  In  the 
North,  where  she  had  lived,  he  was  "  na  thocht  weel  of." 
Her  father  had  never  permitted  a  copy  of  his  poems  to  be 
brought  inside  his  doors,  and  had  forbidden  his  children 
to  read  a  word  of  them.  "  He  thocht  them  too  rough  for 
us  to  read."  It  was  not  until  she  was  a  woman  grown, 
and  living  in  her  husband's  house,  that  she  had  ever  ven- 
tured to  disobey  this  parental  command,  and  she  did 
not  now  herself  think  they  were  "fitted  for  the  reading 
of  young  pairsons."  "There  was  much  more  discreet 
writin's,"  she  said  severeby ;  an  opinion  which  there  was 
no  gainsaying. 

There  is  a  broader  horizon  to  be  seen,  looking  westward 
from  the  fields  of  Mossgiel,  than  from  those  of  Lochlea ; 
the  lands  are  higher  and  nobler  of  contour.  Superb  trees, 
which  must  have  been  superb  a  century  ago,  stand  to 
right  and  left  of  the  house, — beeches,  ashes,  oaks,  and 
planes.  The  fields  which  are  in  sight  from  the  house  are 
now  all  grass-grown.  I  have  heard  that  twenty  years  ago, 
it  was  confident!}7  told  in  which  field  Burns,  ploughing  late 
in  the  autumn,  broke  into  the  little  nest  of  the 

"  Wee  sleekit,  cow'rin',  titn'rous  beastie," 

whom  every  song-lover  has  known  and  pitied  from  that 
day  to  this,  and  whose  misfortunes  have  answered  ever 
since  for  a  mint  of  reassuring  comparison  to  all  of  us, 
remembering  that  "  the  best-laid  schemes  o'  mice  an' 
men"  must  "gang  aft  aglee ; "  and  the  other  field,  also 
near  by,  where  grew  that  mountain  daisy, 

"  Wee,  modest,  crimson-tipped  flower," 


162  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

whose  name  is  immortal  in  our  hearts  as  that  of  Burns. 
This  farm-wife,  however,  knew  nothing  about  them.  The 
stern  air  of  the  north  country  in  which  she  had  been 
reared  still  chilled  somewhat  her  thoughts  of  Burns  and 
her  interest  in  his  inalienable  bond  on  the  fields  of  her 
farm. 

It  is  but  a  mile  from  Mossgiel's  gate  to  Mauchline,  the 
town  of  "  bonnie  Jean "  and  Nansie  Tinnoch  and  Gavin 
Hamilton.  Surely  a  strange-assorted  trio  to  be  comrades 
of  one  man.  Their  houses  are  still  standing:  Jean's  a 
tumble-down  thatched  cottage,  looking  out  of  place  enough 
between  the  smart,  new  houses  built  on  either  side  of  it ; 
Gavin  Hamilton's,  a  dark,  picturesque  stone  house,  joined 
to  the  ruins  of  Mauchline  Castle  ;  and  Nansie  Tinnoch's, 
a  black  and  dilapidated  hovel,  into  which  it  takes  courage 
to  go.  It  stands  snugged  up  against  the  wall  of  the  old 
graveyard,  part  below  it  and  part  above  it,  —  a  situation 
as  unwholesome  as  horrible ;  a  door  at  the  head  of  the 
narrow  stairway  opening  out  into  the  graveyard  itself, 
and  the  slanting  old  stones  leering  in  at  the  smoky  win- 
dows by  crowds.  In  the  days  when  aU  the  "  country 
side  "  met  at  the  open-air  services  in  this  churchyard, 

"  Some  thinkin'  on  their  sins,  an'  some  on  their  claes," 

no  doubt  Nanc}r  Tinnoch's  was  a  lighter,  whiter,  cheerier 
place  than  now;  else  the  "Jolly  Beggars"  would  never 
have  gone  there  to  tipple. 

It  was  the  nooning  between  services  when  I  reached 
Mauchline,  and  church-goers  from  a  distance  were  taking 
their  beer  and  crackers  decorously  in  the  parlor  of  the  inn. 
As  the  intermission  was  onty  three  quarters  of  an  hour 
long,  this  much  of  involuntary  dissipation  was  plainly- 
forced  on  them ;  but  they  did  not  abuse  it,  I  can  testify. 
They  partook  of  it  as  of  a  passover:  young  men  and 
maidens  as  sober  and  silent  as  if  they  had  been  doing  sol- 
emn penance  for  sins,  as  indeed,  from  one  point  of  view, 
it  might  perhaps  be  truly  said  that  they  were. 

By  dint  of  some  difficult  advances  I  drew  one  or  two  of 
them  into  conversation  about  the  Mossgiel  farm  and  the 
disappearance  of  the  old  relics  of  Btirns's  life  in  that  re- 
gion. It  was  a  great  pity,  I  said,  that  the  Mossgiel  house 
ta-l  to  be  taken  down. 


A  BURNS  PILGRIMAGE.  163 

"  'Deed,  then,  it  was  na  such  thing,"  spoke  up  an  elderly 
man.  "It  was  na  moor  than  a  wreck,  an'  I'm  the  mon 
who  did  it." 

He  was  the  landlord  of  the  farm,  it  appeared.  He 
seemed  much  amused  at  hearing  of  the  farm-wife's  dis- 
approval of  Burns's  verses,  and  of  her  father's  prohibition 
of  them. 

"  He  was  a  heepocritical  auld  Radical,  if  3-6  knows  him," 
he  said  angrily.  "I  hope  we'll  never  have  ony  worse 
readin'  in  our  country  than  Robert  Bur-r-r-ns."  The  pro- 
longation of  the  "r"  in  the  Scotch  way  of  saying  "Burns" 
is  something  that  cannot  be  typographically  represented. 
It  is  hardly  a  rolling  of  the  "  r,"  nor  a  multiplication  of 
it ;  but  it  takes  up  a  great  deal  more  time  and  room  than 
any  one  "  r"  ought  to. 

After  the  landlad}*  had  shown  to  me  the  big  hall  where 
the  Freemasons  meet,  "  the  Burns'  Mother  Lodge,"  and 
the  chest  which  used  to  hold  the  regalia  at  Tarbolton  in 
Burns's  da}*,  and  the  little  bedroom  in  which  Stedman  and 
Hawthorne  had  slept,  —  coming  also  to  look  at  Burns's 
fields,  —  she  told  me  in  a  mysterious  whisper  that  there 
was  a  nephew  of  Burns's  in  the  kitchen,  who  would  like 
to  see  me,  if  I  would  like  to  see  him.  "A  nephew  of 
Burns's!"  I  exclaimed.  " Weel,  not  exactly,"  she  ex- 
plained, "but  he's  a  grand-nephew  of  Burns's  wife;  she 
thet  was  Jean,  ye  know,"  with  a  deprecating  nod  and 
lowering  of  the  eyelid.  So  fast  is  the  clutch  of  a  Scotch 
neighborhood  on  its  traditions  of  offended  virtue,  even  to- 
day poor  Jean  cannot  be  mentioned  by  a  landladj'  in  her 
native  town  without  a  small  stone  cast  backward  at  her. 

Jean's  grand-nephew  proved  to  be  a  middle-aged  man  ; 
not  "  ower  weel-to-do,"  the  landlady  said.  He  had  tried 
his  hand  at  doctoring  both  in  Scotland  and  America,  —  a 
rolling  stone  evidently,  with  too  much  of  the  old  fiery 
blood  of  his  race  in  his  veins  for  quiet  and  decorous  pros- 
perity. He,  too,  seemed  only  half  willing  to  speak  of 
poor  "Jean,"  —  his  kinswoman;  but  he  led  me  to  the 
cottage  where  she  had  lived,  and  pointed  out  the  window 
from  which  she  was  said  to  have  leaned  out  many  a  night 
listening  to  the  songs  of  her  lover  when  he  sauntered 
across  from  the  Whiteford  Arms,  Johnny  Pigeon's  house, 
just  opposite,  "  not  fou,  but  having  had  plenty"  to  make 


164  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

him  merry  and  affectionate.  Johnny  Pigeon's  is  a  "co- 
operative store"  now;  and  new  buildings  have  altered  the 
line  of  the  street  so  that  "  Rob  Mossgiel"  would  lose  his 
way  there  to-day. 

The  room  in  which  Burns  and  his  "  bonnie  Jean  "  were 
at  last  married  in  Gavin  Hamilton's  house,  by  Hamilton 
himself,  is  still  shown  to  visitors.  This  room  I  had  a 
greater  desire  to  see  than  any  other  spot  in  Mauchline. 
"We  can  but  try,"  said  the  grand-nephew;  "but  it's  a 
small  chance  of  seeing  it  the  Sabba." 

The  sole  tenant  of  this  house  now  is  the  widow  of  a  son 
of  Gavin  Hamilton's.  Old,  blind,  and  nearly  helpless,  she 
lives  there  alone  with  one  family  servant,  nearly  as  old  as 
herself,  but  hale,  hearty,  and  ros}-  as  only  an  old  Scotch- 
woman can  be.  This  servant  opened  the  door  for  us,  her 
cap,  calico  gown,  and  white  apron  all  alike  bristling  with 
starch,  religion,  and  pride  of  family.  Her  mistress  would 
not  allow  the  room  to  be  shown  on  the  Sabbath,  she  said. 
Imploringly  it  was  explained  to  her  that  no  other  day  had 
been  possible,  and  that  I  had  come  "all  the  way  from 
America." 

"  Ye  did  na  do  weel  to  tak  the  Sabbath,"  was  her  only 
reply,  as  she  turned  on  her  heel  to  go  with  the  fruitless 
appeal  to  her  mistress.  Returning,  she  said  curtly,  — 

"  She  winna  shew  it  on  the  Sabbath." 

At  this  crisis  my  companion,  who  had  kept  in  the  back- 
ground, stepped  forward  with,  — 

"  You  don't  know  me,  Elspie,  do  3*6?  " 

"  No,  sir,"  she  said  stiffly,  bracing  herself  up  mentally 
against  any  further  heathenish  entreaties. 

' '  What,  not  know ?  "  repeating  his  name  in  full. 

Presto !  as  if  changed  by  a  magician's  trick,  the  stiff, 
starched,  religious,  haughty  family  retainer  disappeared, 
and  there  stood,  in  the  same  cap,  gown,  and  apron,  a  lim- 
ber, rollicking,  weilnigh  improper  old  woman,  who  poked 
the  grand-nephew  in  the  ribs,  clapped  him  on  the  shoulder, 
chuckling,  ejaculating,  questioning,  wondering,  laughing, 
all  in  a  breath.  Reminiscence  on  reminiscence  foflowed 
between  them. 

"  An'  do  3*6  mind  Barry,  too?  "  she  asked.  (This  was  an 
old  man-servant  of  the  house.)  "  An'  many  's  the  quirrel, 
an'  many  's  the  gree  we  had." 


A   BURNS  PILGRIMAGE.  165 

Bany  was  dead.  Dead  also  was  the  beautiful  girl  whom 
nn*  companion  remembered  well,  —  dead  of  a  broken  heart 
before  she  was  eighteen  years  of  age.  Forbidden  to  marry 
her  lover,  she  had  drooped  and  pined.  He  went  to  India 
and  died.  It  was  in  a  December  the  news  of  his  death 
came,  just  at  Christmas  time,  and  in  the  next  September 
she  followed  him. 

"  Ay,  but  she  was  a  bonnie  lass,"  said  Elspie,  the  tears 
rolling  down  her  face. 

"I  dare  say  she  [nodding  his  head  toward  the  house] 
—  I  dare  say  she 's  shed  many  a  salt  tear  over  it ;  but  nae- 
body  'ill  ever  know  she  repentit,"  quoth  the  grand-nephew. 

"  Ay,  ay,"  said  Elspie.  "  There  's  a  wee  bit  closet  iiv 
every  hoos." 

"  'T  was  in  that  room  she  died,"  pointing  up  to  a  small 
ivy-shaded  window.  "I  closed  her  eyes  wi'  my  hands. 
She 's  never  spoken  of.  She  was  a  bonnie  lass." 

The  picture  of  this  desolate  old  woman,  sitting  there 
alone  in  her  house,  helpless,  blind,  waiting  for  death  to 
come  and  take  her  to  meet  that  daughter  whose  }'oung 
heart  was  broken  by  her  cruel  will,  seemed  to  shadow  the 
very  sunshine  on  the  greensward  in  the  court.  The  broken 
arches  and  crumbling  walls  of  the  old  stone  abbey  ruins 
seemed,  in  their  ivy  mantles,  warmly,  joyously  venerable 
by  contrast  with  the  silent,  ruined,  stony  old  human  heart 
still  beating  in  the  house  they  joined. 

In  spite  of  my  protestations,  the  grand-nephew  urged 
Elspie  to  show  us  the  room.  She  evidently  now  longed  to 
do  it ;  but,  casting  a  fearful  glance  over  her  shoulder,  said : 
"  I  daur  na  !  I  daur  na  !  I  could  na  open  the  door  that 
she  'd  na  hear 't."  And  she  seemed  much  relieved  when  I 
made  haste  to  assure  her  that  on  no  account  would  I  go 
into  the  room  without  her  mistress's  permission.  So  we 
came  away,  leaving  her  gazing  regretfully  after  us,  with 
her  hand  shading  her  eyes  from  the  sun. 

Going  back  from  Mauchline  to  Ayr,  I  took  another 
road,  farther  to  the  south  than  the  one  leading  through 
Tarbolton,  and  much  more  beautiful,  with  superb  beech- 
trees  meeting  overhead,  and  gentlemen's  country-seats, 
with  great  parks,  on  either  hand. 

On  this  road  is  Montgomerie  Castle,  walled  in  by  grand 
woods,  which  Burns  knew  so  well. 


166  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

"  Ye  banks  and  braes  and  streams  around 

The  castle  o'  Montgomery, 
Green  be  your  woods  and  fair  your  flowers, 

Your  waters  never  drumlie  ! 
There  simmer  first  unfauld  her  robes, 

And  there  the  langest  tarry, 
For  there  I  took  the  last  fareweel 

O'  my  sweet  Highland  Mary." 

Sitting  in  the  sun,  on  a  bench  outside  the  gate-house, 
with  his  little  granddaughter  on  his  lap,  was  the  white- 
haired  gate-keeper.  As  the  horses'  heads  turned  toward 
the  gate,  he  arose  slowly,  without  a  change  of  muscle,  and 
set  down  the  child,  who  accepted  her  altered  situation  also 
without  a  change  of  muscle  in  her  sober  little  face. 

"Is  it  allowed  to  go  in?"  asked  the  driver. 

"Eh  — ye  '11  not  be  calling  at  the  hoos?  "  asked  the  old 
man,  surprised. 

"No,  I'm  a  stranger;  but  I  like  to  see  all  the  fine 
places  in  your  country,"  I  replied. 

"I've  no  orders,"  looking  at  the  driver  reflectively; 
"  I  've  no  orders  —  but  —  a  decent  pairson  "  —  looking 
again  scrutinizingly  at  me, —  "I  think  there  can  be  no 
hairm."  And  he  opened  the  gate. 

Grand  trees,  rolling  tracts  of  velvety  turf,  an  ugly  huge 
house  of  weather-beaten  stone,  with  white  pillars  in  front ; 
conservatories  joining  the  wings  to  the  centre  ;  no  attempt 
at  decorative  landscape  art ;  grass,  trees,  distances,  — 
these  were  all ;  but  there  were  miles  of  these.  It  was  at 
least  a  mile's  drive  to  the  other  entrance  to  the  estate, 
where  the  old  stone  gateway  house  was  in  ruin.  I  fancy 
that  it  was  better  kept  up  in  the  days  before  an  Earl  of 
Eglinstoune  sold  it  to  a  plain  Mr.  Patterson. 

At  another  fine  estate  nearer  Ayr,  where  an  old  woman 
was  gate-keeper,  and  also  had  "no  orders"  about  admit- 
ting strangers,  the  magic  word  "America"  threw  open  the 
gates  with  a  sweep,  and  bent  the  old  dame's  knees  in  a 
courtesy  which  made  her  look  three  times  as  broad  as  she 
was  long.  This  estate  had  been  "  always  in  the  Oswald 
family,  an'  is  likely  always  to  be,  please  God,"  said  the 
loyal  creature,  with  another  courtesy  at  the  mention,  uncon- 
sciously devout  as  that  of  the  Catholic  when  he  crosses  him- 
self. "  An'  it 's  a  fine  country  ye  've  yersel'  in  America," 


A  BURNS  PILGRIMAGE.  167 

she  added  politely.  The  Oswald  estate  has  acres  of 
beautiful  curving  uplands,  all  green  and  smooth  and  open  ; 
a  lack  of  woods  near  the  house,  but  great  banks  of  sun- 
shine instead,  make  a  beauty  all  their  own  ;  and  the  Ayr 
Water,  running  through  the  grounds,  and  bridged  grace- 
full}*  here  and  there,  is  a  possession  to  be  coveted.  From 
all  points  is  a  clear  sight  of  sea,  and  headlands  north  and 
south, — Ayr  harbor  lying  like  a  crescent,  now  silver,  now 
gold,  afloat  between  blue  sky  and  green  shore,  and  dusky 
gray  roof-lines  of  the  town. 

The  most  precious  thing  in  all  the  parish  of  Ayr  is  the 
cottage  in  which  Burns  was  born.  It  is  about  two  miles 
south  from  the  centre  of  the  town,  on  the  shore  of  "  Bonnie 
Doon,"  and  near  Alloway  Kirk.  You  cannot  go  thither  from 
Ayr  over  any  road  except  the  one  Tarn  o'  Shanter  took : 
it  has  been  straightened  a  little  since  his  day,  but  many  a 
rod  of  it  is  the  same  that  Maggie  trod ;  and  Alloway  Kirk 
is  as  ghostly  a  place  now,  even  at  high  noon,  as  can  be 
found  "frae  Maidenkirk  to  Johnny  Groat's."  There  is 
nothing  left  of  it  but  the  walls  and  the  gable,  in  which  the 
ancient  bell  still  hangs,  intensifying  the  silence  by  its 
suggestion  of  echoes  long  dead. 

The  Burns  cottage  is  now  a  sort  of  inn,  kept  by  an 
Englishman  whose  fortunes  would  make  a  tale  by  them- 
selves. He  fought  at  Balaklava  and  in  our  civil  war ;  and 
side  by  side  on  the  walls  of  his  dining-room  hang,  framed, 
his  two  commissions  in  the  Pennsylvania  Volunteers  and 
the  menu  of  the  Balaklava  Banquet,  given  in  London  to 
the  brave  fellows  that  came  home  alive  after  that  fight. 
He  does  not  love  the  Scotch  people. 

"  I  would  not  give  the  Americans  for  all  the  Scotch  ever 
born,"  he  says,  and  is  disposed  to  speak  with  unjust  satire 
of  their  apparent  love  of  Burns,  which  he  ascribes  to  a 
perception  of  his  recognition  by  the  rest  of  the  world  and 
a  shamefaced  desire  not  to  seem  to  be  behindhand  in 
paying  tribute  to  him. 

"  Oh,  they  let  on  to  think  much  of  him,"  he  said.  "  It's 
mone}'  in  their  pockets." 

The  room  in  which  Burns  was  born  is  still  unaltered, 
except  in  having  one  more  window  let  in.  Originally,  it 
had  but  one  small  square  window  of  four  panes.  The  bed 
is  like  the  beds  in  all  the  old  Scotch  cottages,  built  into 


168  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

the  wall,  similar  to  those  still  seen  in  Norway.  Stifling 
enough  the  air  surely  must  have  been  in  the  cupboard  bed 
in  which  the  "  waly  boy  "  was  born. 

"  The  gossip  keekit  in  his  loof ; 
Quo'  scho,  '  Wha  lives  will  see  the  proof,  — 
This  waly  boy  will  be  nae  coof  : 
I  think  we  '11  ca'  him  Robin.'  " 

Before  he  was  many  days  old,  or,  as  some  traditions  have 
it,  on  the  very  night  he  was  born,  a  violent  storm  "tirled" 
away  part  of  the  roof  of  the  poor  little  "  clay  biggin,"  and 
mother  and  babe  were  forced  to  seek  shelter  in  a  neighbor's 
cottage.  Misfortune  and  Robin  early  joined  compan}-,  and 
never  parted.  The  little  bedroom  is  now  the  show-room  of 
the  inn,  and  is  filled  with  tables  piled  with  the  well-known 
boxes,  pincushions,  baskets,  paper-cutters,  etc.,  made 
from  sycamore  wood  grown  on  the  banks  of  Doon  and  Ayr. 
These  articles  are  all  stamped  with  some  pictures  of  scenery 
associated  with  Burns  or  with  quotations  from  his  verses. 
It  is  impossible  to  see  all  this  money-making  without  think- 
ing what  a  delicious,  rollicking  bit  of  verse  Burns  would 
write  about  it  himself  if  he  came  back  to-day.  There  are 
those  who  offer  for  sale  articles  said  to  be  made  out  of  the 
old  timbers  of  the  Mossgiel  house ;  but  the  Balaklava 
Englishman  scouts  all  that  as  the  most  barefaced  impos- 
ture. ''There  was  n't  an  inch  of  that  timber,"  he  says, 
—  and  he  was  there  when  the  house  was  taken  down,  — 
"  which  was  n't  worm-eaten  and  rotten ;  not  enough  to 
make  a  knife-handle  of  ! " 

One  feels  disposed  to  pass  over  in  silence  the  ' '  Burns 
Monument,"  which  was  built  in  1820,  at  a  cost  of  over 
three  thousand  pounds;  "  a  circular  temple  supported  by 
nine  fluted  Corinthian  columns,  emblematic  of  the  nine 
muses,"  say  the  guide-books.  It  stands  in  a  garden  over- 
looking the  Doon,  and  is  a  painful  sight.  But  in  a  room 
in  the  base  of  it  are  to  be  seen  some  relics  at  which  no 
Burns  lover  can  look  unmoved, — the  Bibles  he  gave 
to  Highland  Mary,  the  ring  with  which  he  wedded  Jean 
(taken  off  after  her  death),  and  two  rings  containing  some 
of  his  hair. 

It  is  but  a  few  steps  from  this  monument  down  to  a  spot 
on  the  "  banks  o'  bonnie  Doon,"  from  which  is  a  fine  view 


A   BURNS  PILGRIMAGE.  169 

of  tbe  "  auld  brig."  This  shining,  silent  water,  and  the 
overhanging,  silent  trees,  and  the  silent  bell  in  the  gable 
of  Alloway  Kirk,  speak  more  eloquently  of  Burns  than  do 
all  nine  of  the  Corinthian  muse-dedicated  pillars  in  his 
monument. 

So  do  the  twa  brigs  of  Ayr,  which  still  stand  at  the  foot 
of  High  Street,  silently  recriminating  each  other  as  of  old. 

"  I  doubt  na,  frien',  ye  '11  think  ye'r  nae  sheep-shank 
When  ye  are  streekit  o'er  frae  bank  to  bank," 

sneers  the  Auld  ;  and 

"  Will  your  poor,  narrow  foot-path  of  a  street, 
Where  twa  wheelbarrows  tremble  when  they  meet, 
Your  ruined,  formless  bulk  o'  stane  and  lime, 
Compare  wi'  bonny  brigs  o'  modern  time1?  " 

retorts  the  New  ;    and  "  the  sprites  that  owre  the  brigs  of 
Ayr  preside"  never  interrupt  the  quarrel.     Spite  of  all  its 
boasting,  however,  the  new  bridge  cracked  badly  two  years 
ago,  and  had  to  be  taken  down  and  entirely  rebuilt. 
The  cling}-  little  inn  where 

"  Tarn  was  glorious, 
O'er  a'  the  ills  o'  life  victorious," 

is  still  called  by  his  name,  and  still  preserves,  as  its  chief 
claims  to  distinction,  the  big  wooden  mug  out  of  which 
Tarn  drank,  and  the  chair  in  which  he  so  many  market- 
nights 

"  Gat  planted  unco  richt." 

The  chair  is  of  oak,  wellnigh  black  as  ebony,  and  fur- 
rowed thick  with  names  cut  upon  it.  The  smart  young 
landlady  who  now  keeps  the  house  commented  severely  on 
this  desecration  of  it,  and  said  that  for  some  years  the 
house  had  been  "  keepit"  by  a  widow,  who  was  "in  no 
sense  up  to  the  beesiness,"  and  "a'  people  did  as  they 
pleased  in  the  hoos  in  her  da)*."  The  mug  has  a  metal 
rim  and  base  ;  but  spite  of  these  it  has  needed  to  be  clasped 
together  again  by  three  ribs  of  cane,  riveted  on.  "  Money 
could  n't  buy  it,"  the  landlady  said.  It  belongs  to  the 
house,  is  mentioned  always  in  the  terms  of  lease,  and  the 
house  has  changed  hands  but  four  times  since  Tain's  day. 


170  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

In  a  tiny  stone  cottage  in  the  southern  suburbs  of  AJT, 
live  two  nieces  of  Burns,  daughters  of  his  youngest  sister, 
Isabella.  They  are  vivacious  still,  and  eagerly  alive  to  all 
that  goes  on  in  the  world,  though  they  must  be  well  on  in 
the  seventies.  The  day  I  called  they  had  "just  received 
a  newspaper  from  America,"  they  said.  "  Perhaps  I  knew 
it.  It  was  called  '  The  Democrat.'  "  As  I  was  not  able 
to  identify  it  by  that  description,  the  younger  sister  made 
haste  to  fetch  it.  It  proved  to  be  a  paper  printed  in  Mad- 
ison, Iowa.  The  old  ladies  were  much  interested  in  the 
approaching  American  election,  had  read  all  they  could 
find  about  General  Garfield,  and  were  much  impressed  by 
the  wise  reticence  of  General  Grant.  "He  must  be  a 
var}T  cautious  man ;  disna  say  enough  to  please  people," 
they  said,  with  sagacious  nods  of  approbation.  They  re- 
membered Burns's  wife  very  well,  had  visited  her  when 
she  was  living,  a  widow,  at  Dumfries,  and  told  with  glee  a 
story  which  they  said  she  herself  used  to  narrate,  with  great 
relish,  of  a  pedler  lad  who,  often  coming  to  the  house 
with  wares  to  sell  in  the  kitchen,  finally  expressed  to  the 
servant  his  deep  desire  to  see  Mrs.  Burns.  She  accord- 
ingl}7  told  him  to  wait,  and  her  mistress  would,  no  doubt, 
before  long  come  into  the  room.  Mrs.  Burns  came  in, 
stood  for  some  moments  talking  with  the  lad,  bought  some 
trifle  of  him,  and  went  away.  Still  he  sat  waiting.  At 
last  the  servant  asked  why  he  did  not  go.  He  replied  that 
she  had  promised  he  should  see  Mrs.  Burns. 

"But  ye  have  seen  her;  that  was  she,"  said  the 
servant. 

"Eh,  eh?"  said  the  lad.  "Na!  never  tell  me  now 
that  was  '  bonnie  Jean  ' !  " 

Burns's  mother,  too  (their  grandmother) ,  they  recollected 
well,  and  had  often  heard  her  tell  of  the  time  when  the 
family  lived  at  Lochlea,  and  Robert,  spending  his  even- 
ings at  the  Tarbolton  merry-makings  with  the  Bachelors' 
Club  or  the  Masons,  used  to  come  home  late  in  the  night, 
and  she  used  to  sit  up  to  let  him  in.  These  doings  sorely 
displeased  the  father  ;  and  at  last  he  said  grimly,  one  night, 
that  he  would  sit  up  to  open  the  door  for  Robert.  Trem- 
bling with  fear,  the  mother  went  to  bed,  and  did  not  close 
her  eyes,  listening  apprehensively  for  the  angry  meeting 
l>rl \uvii  father  and  son.  She  heard  the  door  open,  the  old 


A  BURNS  PILGRIMAGE.  171 

man's  stern  tone,  Robert's  gay  reply  ;  and  in  a  twinkling 
more  the  two  were  sitting  together  over  the  fire,  the  father 
splitting  his  sides  with  halt-unwilling  laughter  at  the  boy's 
inimitable  descriptions  and  mimicry  of  the  scenes  he  had 
left.  Xearly  two  hours  they  sat  there  in  this  way,  the 
mother  all  the  while  cramming  the  bed-clothes  into  her 
mouth,  lest  her  own  laughter  should  remind  her  husband 
how  poorly  he  was  carrying  out  his  threats.  After  that 
night  "Rob"  came  home  at  what  hour  he  pleased,  and 
there  was  nothing  more  heard  of  his  father's  sitting  up  to 
reprove  him. 

They  believed  that  Burns's  intemperate  habits  had  been 
greatly  exaggerated.  Their  mother  was  a  woman  twenty- 
five  years  old,  and  the  mother  of  three  children  when  he 
died,  and  she  had  never  once  seen  him  the  "  waur  for 
liquor."  "There  were  vary  mony  idle  people  i'  the  warld, 
an'  a  great  deal  o'  talk,"  they  said.  After  his  father's 
death  he  assumed  the  position  of  the  head  of  the  house, 
and  led  in  family  prayers  each  morning ;  and  everybody^ 
said,  even  the  servants,  that  there  were  never  such  beauti- 
ful prayers  heard.  He  was  a  generous  soul.  After  he  left 
home  he  never  came  back  for  a  visit,  however  poor  he 
might  be,  without  bringing  a  present  for  every  member  of 
the  family;  always  a  pound  of  tea  for  his  mother,  "and 
tea  was  tea  then,"  the  old  ladies  added.  To  their  mother 
he  gave  a  copy  of  Thomson's  "Seasons,"  which  they  still 
have.  They  have  also  some  letters  of  his,  two  of  which  I 
read  with  great  interest.  They  were  to  his  brother,  and 
were  full  of  good  advice.  In  one  he  says  :  — 

"  I  intended  to  have  given  you  a  sheetful  of  counsels,  but 
some  business  has  prevented  me.  In  a  word,  learn  taciturnity. 
Let  that  be  your  motto.  Though  you  had  the  wisdom  of  Newton 
or  the  wit  of  Swift,  garrulousness  would  lower  you  in  the  eyes 
of  your  fellow-creatures." 

In  the  other,  after  alluding  to  some  village  tragedy,  in 
which  great  suffering  had  fallen  on  a  woman,  he  sa}-s,  — 

"  Women  have  a  kind  of  steady  sufferance  which  qualifies 
them  to  endure  much  beyond  the  common  run  of  men;  but  per- 
haps part  of  that  fortitude  is  owing  to  their  short-sightedness,  as 
they  are  Ivy  no  means  famous  for  seeing  remote  consequences  in 
their  real  importance." 


172  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

The  old  ladies  said  that  their  mother  had  liked  "  Jean" 
'on  the  whole,  though  "at  first  not  so  weel,  on  account 
of  the  connection  being  what  it  was."  She  was  kindly, 
cheery,  "never  bonny;"  but  had  a  good  figure,  danced 
well  and  sang  well,  and  worshipped  her  husband.  She 
was  "not  intellectual;"  "but  there's  some  say  a  poet 
should  n't  have  an  intellectual  wife,"  one  of  the  ingenuous 
old  spinsters  remarked  interrogative^.  "  At  an}r  rate, 
she  suited  him  ;  an'  it  was  ill  speering  at  her  after  all  that 
•was  said  and  done,"  the  younger  niece  added,  with  real 
feeling  in  her  tone.  Well  might  she  sa}*  so.  If  there 
be  a  touching  picture  in  all  the  long  list  of  faithful 
and  ill-used  women,  it  is  that  of  "  bonnie  Jean,"  — the 
unwedded  mother  of  children,  the  forgiving  wife  of  a  hus- 
band who  betrayed  others  as  he  had  betrayed  her,  — 
when  she  took  into  her  arms  and  nursed  and  cared  for 
her  husband's  child,  born  of  an  outcast  woman,  and  bravely 
answered  all  curious  questioners  with,  "It's  a  neebor's 
bairn  I'm  bringin'up."  She  wrought  for  herself  a  place 
and  an  esteem  of  which  her  honest  and  loving  humility 
little  dreamed. 

There  is  always  something  sad  in  seeking  out  the  spot 
where  a  great  man  has  died.  It  is  like  living  over  the 
days  of  his  death  and  burial.  The  more  sympathetically 
we  have  felt  the  spell  of  the  scenes  in  which  he  lived  his 
life,  the  more  vitalized  and  vitalizing  that  life  was,  the 
more  are  we  chilled  and  depressed  in  the  presence  of  pla- 
ces on  which  his  wearied  and  suffering  gaze  rested  last. 
As  I  drove  through  the  dingy,  confused,  and  ugly  streets 
of  Dumfries,  my  chief  thought  was,  "How  Burns  must 
have  hated  this  place !  "  Looking  back  on  it  now,  I  have 
a  half-regret  that  I  ever  saw  it,  that  I  can  recall  vividly 
the  ghastly  graveyard  of  Saint  Michael's,  with  its  twenty- 
six  thousand  gravestones  and  monuments,  crowded  closer 
than  they  would  be  in  a  marble^ard,  ranged  in  rows 
against  the  walls  without  any  pretence  of  association  with 
the  dust  they  affect  to  commemorate.  What  a  ballad  Burns 
might  have  written  about  such  a  show  !  And  what  would 
it  not  have  been  given  to  him  to  saj-  of  the  "  Genius  of 
Coila  finding  her  favorite  son  at  the  plough,  and  casting  her 
mantle  over  him,"  —  that  is,  the  sculptured  monument,  or, 
as  the  sexton  called  it,  "  Mawsolem,"  under  which  he  has 


A  BURNS  PILGRIMAGE.  173 

had  the  misfortune  to  be  buried.  A  great  Malvern  bath- 
woman,  bringing  a  bathing-sheet  to  an  unwilling  patient, 
might  have  been  the  model  for  the  thing.  It  is  hideous 
beyond  description,  and  in  a  refinement  of  ingenuit}-  has 
been  made  uglier  still  by  having  the  spaces  between  the 
pillars  filled  in  with  glass.  The  severe  Scotch  weather,  it 
seems,  was  discoloring  the  marble.  It  is  a  pity  that  the 
zealous  guardians  of  its  beauty  did  not  hold  it  precious 
enough  to  be  boarded  up  altogether. 

The  house  in  which  Burns  spent  the  first  eighteen 
months  of  his  drear}*  life  in  Dumfries  is  now  a  common 
tenement-house  at  the  lower  end  of  a  poor  and  narrow 
street.  As  I  was  reading  the  tablet  let  into  the  wall, 
bearing  his  name,  a  carpenter  went  by,  carrying  his  box  of 
tools  slung  on  his  shoulder. 

"  He  only  had  three  rooms  there,"  said  the  man,  "  those 
three  up  there,"  pointing  to  the  windows;  "two  rooms 
and  a  little  kitchen  at  the  back." 

The  house  which  is  usually  shown  to  strangers  as  his  is 
now  the  home  of  the  master  of  the  industrial  school,  and 
is  a  comfortable  little  building  joining  the  school.  Here 
Burns  lived  for  three  years  ;  and  here,  in  a  small  chamber 
not  more  than  twelve  by  fifteen  feet  in  size,  he  died  on  the 
21st  of  Jul}-,  1796,  sadly  harassed  in  his  last  moments  by 
anxiet}'  about  money  matters  and  about  the  approaching 
illness  of  his  faithful  Jean. 

Opening  from  this  room  is  a  tiny  closet,  lighted  by  one 
window. 

"  They  say  he  used  to  make  up  his  poetry  in  here,"  said 
the  servant-girl;  "  but  I  dare  say  it  is  only  a  supposee- 
tion  ;  still,  it  'ud  be  a  quiet  place." 

"  They  say  there  was  a  great  lot  o'  papers  up  here  when 
he  died."  she  added,  throwing  open  the  narrow  door  of  a 
ladder-like  stairway  that  led  up  into  the  garret,  "  writin's 
that  had  been  sent  to  him  from  all  over  the  world,  but 
nobody  knew  what  become  of  them.  Now  that  he  's  so 
much  thought  aboot,  I  wonder  his  widow  did  not  keep 
them.  But,  ye  know,  the  poor  thing  was  just  comin'  to  be 
ill ;  that  was  the  last  thing  he  wrote  when  he  knew  he  was 
dyin',  for  some  one  to  come  and  stay  with  her ;  and  I  dare 
say  she  was  in  such  a  sewither  she  did  not  know  about 
anything." 


174  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

The  old  stone  stairs  were  winding  and  narrow,  —  painted 
now,  and  neatly  carpeted,  but  worn  into  depressions  here 
and  there  by  the  plodding  of  feet.  Nothing  in  the  house, 
above  or  below,  spoke  to  me  of  Burns  so  much  as  did  they. 
I  stood  silent  and  rapt  on  the  landing,  and  saw  him  coming 
wearily  up,  that  last  time ;  after  which  he  went  no  more 
out  forever,  till  he  was  borne  in  the  arms  of  men,  and  laid 
away  in  Saint  Michael's  graveyard  to  rest. 

That  night,  at  my  lonely  dinner  in  the  King's  Arms,  I 
had  the  Edinburgh  papers.  There  were  in  them  three 
editorials  headed  with  quotations  from  Burns's  poems, 
and  an  account  of  the  sale  in  Edinburgh,  that  week,  of  an 
autograph  letter  of  his  for  ninety-four  pounds  ! 

Does  he  think  sadly,  even  in  heaven,  how  differently  he 
might  have  done  by  himself  and  by  earth,  if  earth  had 
done  for  him  then  a  tithe  of  what  it  does  now  ?  Does  he 
know  it?  Does  he  care?  And  does  he  listen  when,  in 
lands  he  never  saw,  great  poets  sing  of  him  in  words  sim- 
ple and  melodious  as  his  own  ? 

"For  now  he  haunts  his  native  land 
As  an  immortal  youth  :  his  hand 

Guides  every  plough ; 
He  sits  beside  each  ingle-nook, 
His  voice  is  in  each  rushing  brook, 
Each  rustling  bough. 

"  His  presence  haunts  this  room  to-night, 
A  form  of  mingled  mist  and  light 

From  that  far  coast. 
Welcome  beneath  this  roof  of  mine ! 
Welcome  !  this  vacant  chair  is  thine, 
Dear  guest  and  ghost ! "  * 

i  Longfellow. 


GLINTS  IN  AULD  REEKIE. 

As  soou  as  one  comes  to  know  Edinburgh,  he  feels  a 
gratitude  to  that  old  gentleman  of  Fife  who  is  said  to  have 
invented  the  affectionate  phrase  "  Auld  Reekie."  Perhaps 
there  never  was  any  such  old  gentleman  ;  and  perhaps  he 
never  did,  as  the  legend  narrates,  regulate  the  hours  of  his 
family  prayers,  on  summer  evenings,  by  the  thickening 
smoke  which  he  could  see  rising  from  Edinburgh  chimneys, 
when  the  cooking  of  suppers  began. 

"It's  time  now,  bairns,  to  tak  the  beuks  an'  gang  to 
our  beds  ;  for  yonder 's  Auld  Reekie,  I  see,  putting  on  her 
nichtcap,"  are  the  words  which  the  harmless  little  tradition 
puts  into  his  mouth.  They  are  wisely  dated  back  to  the 
reign  of  Charles  II.,  a  time  from  which  none  now  speak 
to  contradict ;  and  they  serve  as  well  as  any  others  to  in- 
troduce and  emphasize  the  epithet  which,  once  heard,  is 
not  forgotten  by  a  lover  of  Edinburgh,  remaining  always 
in  his  memory,  like  a  pet  name  of  one  familiarly  known. 

It  is  not  much  the  fashion  of  travellers  to  become  at- 
tached to  Edinburgh.  Rome  for  antiquity,  London  for 
study  and  stir,  Florence  for  art,  Venice  for  art  and  eq- 
chantment  combined,  —  all  these  have  pilgrims  who  be- 
come worshippers,  and  return  again  and  again  to  them,  as 
the  devout  return  to  shrines.  But  few  return  thus  to 
Edinburgh.  It  continuall}"  happens  that  people  planning 
routes  of  travel  are  heard  to  say,  "  I  have  seen  Edinburgh," 
pronouncing  the  word  "seen"  with  a  stress  indicating  a 
finality  of  completion.  Nobod}*  ever  uses  a  phrase  in 
that  way  about  Rome  or  Venice.  It  is  always,  "We  have 
been  in."  "spent  a  winter  in,"  "a  summer  in,"  or  "a 
month  in  "  Rome,  or  Venice,  or  any  of  the  rest ;  and  the 
very  tone  and  turn  of  the  phrase  tell  the  desire  or  purpose 


176  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

of  another  winter,  or  summer,  or  month  in  the  remembered 
and  longed-for  place. 

But  Edinburgh  has  no  splendors  with  which  to  woo  and 
attract.  She  is  "  a  penniless  lass  ; "  "  wi'  a  lang  pedigree," 
however,  —  as  long  and  as  splendid  as  the  best,  reaching 
back  to  King  Arthur  at  least,  and  some  say  a  thousand 
years  farther,  and  assert  that  the  rock  on  which  her  castle 
stands  was  a  stronghold  when  Rome  was  a  village.  At  any 
rate,  there  was  a  fortress  there  long  before  Edinburgh  was 
a  town,  and  that  takes  it  back  midway  between  the  five 
hundredth  and  six  hundredth  year  of  our  Lord.  From  that 
century  down  to  this  it  was  the  centre  of  as  glorious  and 
terrible  lighting  and  suffering  as  the  world  has  ever  seen. 
Kingly  besieged  and  besiegers,  prisoners,  martyrs,  men 
and  women  alike  heroic,  their  presences  throng  each  door- 
way still ;  and  the  ver}r  stones  at  a  touch  seem  set  ringing 
again  with  the  echoes  of  their  triumphs  and  their  agonies. 

To  me,  the  castle  is  Edinburgh.  Looking  from  the 
sunny  south  windows  of  Prince's  Street  across  at  its  hoary 
front  is  like  a  wizard's  miracle,  by  which  dead  centuries 
are  rolled  back,  compressed  into  minutes.  At  the  foot  of 
its  north  precipices,  where  lay  the  lake  in  which,  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  royal  swans  floated  and  plebeian 
courtesans  were  ducked,  now  stretches  a  gay  gardened 
meadow,  through  which  flash  daily  railway  trains.  Their 
columns  of  blue  smoke  scale  the  rocks,  coil  after  coil,  but 
never  reach  the  citadel  summit,  being  tangled,  spent,  and 
lost  in  the  tops  of  trees,  which  in  their  turn  seem  also  to 
be  green-plumed  besiegers,  ever  climbing,  climbing.  For 
five  days  I  looked  out  on  this  picture  etched  against  a  sum- 
mer sky  :  in  black,  by  night ;  in  the  morning,  of  soft  sepia 
tints,  or  gray,  —  tower,  battlement,  wall,  and  roof,  all  in 
sky  lines  ;  below  these  the  wild  crags  and  precipices,  a 
mosaic  of  grays,  two  hundred  feet  down,  to  a  bright  green- 
sward dotted  with  white  daisies.  Set  steadily  to  the  sun- 
rise, b}-  a  west  wind  which  never  stopped  blowing  for  the 
whole  five  days,  streamed  out  the  flag.  To  have  read  on 
its  folds,  "  Castelh-Myn}-d-Agned,"  or  "  Castrum  Puclla- 
rum,"  would  not  have  seemed  at  any  hour  a  surprise. 
There  is  nowhere  a  relic  of  antiquity  which  so  dominates 
its  whole  environment  as  does  this  rock  fortress.  Its 
actuality  is  sovereign  ;  its  personality  majestic.  The  thou- 


GLINTS  IN  AULD  REEKIE.  177 

sands  of  modern  people  thronging  up  and  down  Prince's 
Street  seem  perpetrating  an  impertinent  anachronism. 
The  times  are  the  castle's  times  still ;  all  this  nineteenth- 
century  haberdashery  and  chatter  is  an  inexplicable  and 
insolent  freak  of  interruption.  Sitting  at  one's  Prince's 
Street  windows,  one  sees  it  not ;  overlooks  it  as  meaning- 
less and  of  no  consequence.  Instead,  he  sees  the  consta- 
ble's son,  in  Bruce's  day,  coming  down  that  two  hundred 
feet  of  precipice,  hand  over  hand,  on  a  bit  of  rope  ladder, 
to  visit  the  '•  wench  in  town  "  with  whom  he  was  in  love  ; 
and  anon  turning  this  love-lore  of  his  to  patriotic  account, 
by  leading  Earl  Douglas,  with  his  thirty  picked  Scots,  up 
the  same  precipices,  in  the  same  perilous  fashion,  to  sur- 
prise the  English  garrison,  which  they  did  to  such  good 
purpose  that  in  a  few  hours  the}*  retook  the  castle,  the 
only  one  then  left  which  Bruce  had  not  recovered.  Or, 
when  morning  and  evening  mists  rise  slowly  up  from  the 
meadow,  veil  the  hill,  and  float  off  in  hazy  wreaths  from  its 
summit,  he  fancies  fagots  and  tar-barrels  ablaze  on  the 
esplanade,  and  the  beauteous  Lady  Glamrnis,  with  her 
white  arms  crossed  on  her  breast,  burning  to  death  there, 
with  eyes  fixed  on  the  windows  of  her  husband's  prison. 
Scores  of  other  women  with  "  fayre  bodies"  were  burned 
alive  there  ;  men,  too,  their  lovers  and  sons,  —  all  for  a 
crime  of  which  no  human  soul  ever  was  or  could  be  guilty. 
Poor,  blinded,  superstitious  earth,  which  heard  and  saw  and 
permitted  such  things  !  Even  to-day,  when  the  ground  is 
dug  up  on  that  accursed  esplanade,  there  are  found  the 
ashes  of  these  martyrs  to  the  witchcraft  madness. 

That  grand  old  master-gunner,  too,  of  Cromwell's  first 
following,  —  each  sunset  gun  from  the  castle  seemed  to  me 
in  honor  of  his  memory,  and  recalled  his  name.  "  May 
the  devil  blaw  me  into  the  air,  if  I  lowse  a  cannon  this 
day  ! "  said  he,  when  Charles's  men  bade  him  fire  a  salute 
in  honor  of  the  Restoration.  Every  other  one  of  Crom- 
well's men  in  the  garrison  had  turned  false,  and  done  ready 
service  to  the  king's  officers  ;  but  not  so  Browne.  It  was 
only  by  main  force  that  he  was  dragged  to  his  gun,  and 
forced  to  fire  it.  Whether  the  gun  were  old,  and  its  time 
had  come  to  burst,  or  whether  the  splendid  old  Puritan 
slyly  overweighed  his  charge,  it  is  open  to  each  man's  pre- 
ference to  believe  ;  but  burst  the  scun  did,  and,  taking  the 


178  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

hero  at  his  word,  "  shuites  his  bellie  from  him,  and  blew 
him  quyte  over  the  castle  wall,"  says  the  old  record.  I 
make  no  doubt  myself  that  it  was  just  what  the  master- 
gunner  intended. 

Thirty  years  later  there  were  many  gunners  in  Edin- 
burgh Castle  as  brave  as  he,  or  braver,  —  men  who  stood 
by  their  guns  month  after  month,  starving  by  inches  and 
freezing ;  the  snow  lying  knee-deep  on  the  shattered  bas- 
tions ;  every  roof  shelter  blown  to  fragments ;  no  fuel ; 
their  last  well  so  low  that  the  water  was  putrid  ;  raw  salt 
herrings  the  only  food  for  the  men,  and  for  the  officers  oat- 
meal, stirred  in  the  putrid  water.  This  was  the  Duke  of 
Gordon's  doing,  when  he  vowed  to  hold  Edinburgh  Castle 
for  King  James,  if  every  other  fortress  in  Scotland  went 
over  to  William.  When  his  last  hope  failed,  and  he  gave 
his  men  permission  to  abandon  the  castle  and  go  out  to 
the  enemy,  if  they  chose,  not  a  man  would  go.  "  Three 
cheers  for  his  grace,"  they  raised,  with  their  poor  starved 
voices,  and  swore  they  would  stay  as  long  as  he  did. 
From  December  to  June  they  held  out,  and  then  surren- 
dered, a  handful  of  fifty  ghastl3',  emaciated,  tottering  men. 
Pity  they  could  not  have  known  how  much  grander  than 
victories  such  defeats  as  theirs  would  read  by  and  by  ! 

Hard  by  the  castle  was  the  duke's  house,  in  Blair's 
Close  ;  in  this  he  was  shut  up  prisoner,  under  strict  guard. 
The  steps  up  which  he  walked  that  day,  for  the  first  time 
in  his  life  without  his  sword,  are  still  there  ;  his  coronet, 
with  a  deer-hound  on  either  side,  in  dingy  stone  carving, 
above  the  low  door.  It  is  one  of  the  doorways  worth 
haunting,  in  Edinburgh.  Generations  of  Dukes  of  Gordon 
have  trodden  its  threshold,  from  the  swordless  hero  of  1689 
down  to  the  young  lover  who,  in  George  the  Third's  da\-, 
went  courting  his  duchess,  over  in  Hyndford's  Close,  at 
the  bottom  of  High  Street.  She  was  a  famous  beauty, 
daughter  of  Lady  Maxwell ;  and  thanks  to  one  gossip  and 
another,  we  know  a  good  deal  about  her  bringiug-up. 
There  was  still  living  in  Edinburgh,  sixty  years  ago,  an 
aged  and  courtly  gentleman,  who  recollected  well  having 
seen  her  riding  a  sow  in  High  Street ;  her  sister  running 
behind  and  thumping  the  beast  with  a  stick.  Duchesses 
are  not  made  of  such  stuff  in  these  days.  It  almost  passes 
belief  what  one  reads  in  old  records  of  the  ways  and 


GLINTS  IN  AULD  REEKIE.  179 

manners  of  Scottish  nobility  in  the  first  half  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  These  Maxwells'  fine  laces  were  alwaj-s 
dicing  in  the  narrow  passage  from  their  front  stair  to  their 
drawing-room  ;  and  their  undergear  hanging  out  on  a  pole 
from  an  upper  window  in  full  sight  of  passers-bj',  as  is  still 
the  custom  with  the  povertj'-stricken  people  who  live  in 
Hyndford's  Close. 

On  the  same  stair  with  the  Maxwells  lived  the  Countess 
Anne  of  Balcarres,  mother  of  eleven  children,  the  eldest  of 
whom  wrote  "  Auld  Robin  Gray."  She  was  poor  and  proud, 
and  a  fierce  Jacobite  to  the  last.  To  be  asked  to  drink  tea 
in  Countess  Anne's  bedchamber  was  great  honor.  The 
room  was  so  small  that  the  man-servant,  John,  gorgeous 
in  the  Balcarres  livery,  had  to  stand  snugged  up  to  the 
bedpost.  Here,  with  one  arm  around  the  post,  he  stood 
like  a  statue,  read}'  to  hand  the  teakettle  as  it  was  needed. 
When  the  noble  ladies  differed  about  a  date  or  a  point  of 
genealog}*,  John  was  appealed  to,  and  often  so  far  forgot 
his  manners  as  to  swear  at  the  mention  of  assumers  and 
pretenders  to  baronetcies. 

There  is  an  endless  fascination  in  going  from  house  to 
house,  in  their  old  wynds  and  closes,  now.  A  price  has 
to  be  paid  for  it,  —  bad  smells,  filth  underfoot,  and,  very 
likely,  volleys  of  ribald  abuse  from  gin-loosened  tongues 
right  and  left  and  high  up  overhead  ;  but  all  this  only  em- 
phasizes the  picture,  and  makes  one's  mental  processions 
of  earls  and  countesses  all  the  livelier  and  more  vivid. 

Some  of  these  wynds  are  so  narrow  and  dark  that  one 
hesitates  about  plunging  into  them.  The}'  seem  little  more 
than  rifts  between  dungeons  :  seven,  eight,  and  nine  stories 
high,  the  black  walls  stretch  up.  If  there  is  a  tiny  court- 
yard, it  is  like  the  bottom  of  a  foul  well ;  and  looking  to  the 
hand's- breadth  of  sky  visible  above,  it  seems  so  far  up 
and  so  dark  blue,  one  half  expects  to  see  its  stars  glimmer- 
ing at  noonday.  A  single  narrow  winding  stone  stair  is 
the  only  means  of  going  up  and  down  ;  and  each  floor  being 
swarming  full  of  wretched  human  beings,  each  room  a  tene- 
ment house  in  itself,  of  course  this  common  stairway  be- 
comes a  highway  of  contentions,  the  ver}'  battle-ground  of 
the  house.  Progress  up  or  down  can  be  stopped  at  a  sec- 
ond's notice  ;  a  single  pair  of  elbows  is  a  blockade.  How 
sedan  chairs  were  managed  in  these  corkscrew  crevices 


180  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

is  a  puzzle ;  yet  we  read  that  the  ladies  of  quality  went 
always  in  sedan  chairs  to  balls  and  assemblies. 

In  the  Stamp  Office  Close,  now  the  refuge  of  soot- 
venders,  old-clothes  dealers,  and  hucksters  of  lowest  de- 
gree, tramps,  beggars,  and  skulkers  of  all  sorts,  still  is 
locked  tight  every  night  a  big  carved  door,  at  foot  of  the 
stair  down  which  used  to  come  stately  Lad}-  Eglintoune, 
the  third,  with  her  seven  daughters,  in  fine  array.  It  was 
one  of  the  sights  of  the  town  to  see  the  procession  of  their 
eight  sedan  chairs  on  the  way  to  a  dance.  The  countess 
herself  was  six  feet  tall,  and  her  daughters  not  much  below 
her ;  all  strikingly  handsome,  and  of  such  fine  bearing  that 
it  went  into  the  traditions  of  the  century  as  the  ' '  Eglin- 
toune air."  There  also  went  into  the  traditions  of  the 
century  some  details  of  the  earl's  wooing,  which  might 
better  have  been  kept  a  secret  between  him  and  his  father- 
in-law.  The  second  Lad}*  Eglintoune  was  ailing,  and  like 
to  die,  when  Sir  Archibald  Kennedy  arrived  in  Edinburgh, 
with  his  stalwart  but  beautiful  daughter  Susanna.  She 
was  much  sought  immediately ;  and  Sir  Archibald,  in  his 
perplexity  among  the  many  suitors,  one  day  consulted  his 
old  friend  Eglintoune.  "Bide  a  wee,  Sir  Archy,"  replied 
the  earl,  —  "  bide  a  wee  ;  my  wife 's  very  sickly."  And 
so,  by  waiting,  the  fair  Susanna  became  Countess  of  Eglin- 
toune. It  would  seem  as  if  Nature  had  some  intent  to 
punish  the  earl's  impatient  faithlessness  to  his  sickly  wife  ; 
for,  year  after  year,  seven  years  running,  came  a  daughter, 
and  no  son,  to  the  house  of  Eglintoune.  At  last  the  earl, 
with  a  readiness  to  ignore  marital  obligations  at  which  his 
third  countess  need  not  have  been  surprised,  bluntly  threat- 
ened to  divorce  her  if  she  bore  him  no  heir.  Promptly 
the  spirited  Susanna  replied  that  nothing  would  please  her 
better,  provided  he  would  give  her  back  all  she  brought 
him.  "  Every  penny  of  it,  and  welcome  !  "  retorted  the 
earl,  supposing  she  referred  to  her  fortune.  "  Na,  na,  my 
lord,"  replied  the  lady,  "that  winna  do.  Return  me  my 
youth,  beaut}*,  and  virginity,  and  dismiss  me  when  you 
please ; "  upon  which  the  matter  dropped.  In  the  end, 
the  earl  fared  better  than  he  deserved,  three  sons  being 
given  him  within  the  next  five  years. 

For  half  a  century  Lady  Eglintoune  was  a  prominent 
figure  in  Scottish  soc-i.-il  life.  Her  comings  and  goings  and 


GLINTS  IN  AULD  REEKIE.  181 

doings  were  all  chronicled,  and  handed  down.  It  is  even 
told  that  when  Johnson  and  Boswell  visited  her  at  her 
country-place,  she  was  so  delighted  with  Johnson's  con- 
versation that  she  kissed  him  on  parting,  —  from  which  we 
can  argue  her  ladyship's  liking  for  long  words.  She  lived 
to  be  ninety -one,  and  amused  herself  in  her'  last  days  by 
taming  rats,  of  which  she  had  a  dozen  or  more  in  such 
subjection  that  at  a  tap  on  the  oak  wainscoting  of  her 
dining-room  they  came  forth,  joined  her  at  her  meal,  and 
at  a  word  of  command  retired  again  into  the  wainscot. 

When  twenty-first-century  travellers  go  speiring  among 
the  dingy  ruins  of  cities  which  are  gay  and  fine  now,  they 
will  not  find  relics  and  traces  of  such  individualities  as 
these.  The  eighteenth  centur}'  left  a  most  entertaining 
budget,  which  we  of  to-da}T  are  too  bus}'  and  too  well  edu- 
cated to  equal.  No  chiel  among  us  all  has  the  time  to 
take  gossip  notes  of  this  century ;  and  even  if  he  did, 
they  would  be  dull  enough  in  comparison  with  those  of  the 
last. 

Groping  and  rummaging  in  Hyndford's  Close,  one  day, 
for  recognizable  traces  of  Lady  Maxwell's  house,  we  had 
the  good  fortune  to  encounter  a  thrifty  housewife,  of  the 
better  class,  living  there.  She  was  coming  home,  with 
her  market-basket  on  her  arm.  Seeing  our  eager  scenting 
of  the  old  carvings  on  lintels  and  sills,  and  overhearing  our 
mention  of  the  name  of  the  Duchess  of  Gordon,  she  made 
bold  to  address  us. 

"  It  waur  a  strange  place  for  the  nobeelity  to  be  livin' 
in,  to  be  sure,"  she  said.  "  I  'm  livin'  mysil  in  ane  o'  the 
best  of  'im,  an'  it 's  na  mair  space  to  't  than  ud  turn  a  cat. 
Ye  're  welcome  to  walk  up,  if  ye  like  to  see  what  their 
dwellin's  waur  like  in  the  auld  time.  It 's  a  self-contained 
stair  ye  see,"  she  added  with  pride,  as  she  marshalled  us 
up  a  twisting  stone  stairway,  so  narrow  that  even  one 
person,  going  alone",  must  go  cautiously  to  avoid  grazing 
elbows  and  shins  on  the  stone  walls,  at  every  turn.  "I 
couldna  abide  the  place  but  for  the  self-contained  stair : 
there  's  not  many  has  them,"  she  continued.  "  Mind  yer 
heads  !  mind  yer  heads  !  There 's  a  stoop  !  "  she  cried  ; 
but  it  was  too  late.  We  had  reached,  unwarned,  a  point 
in  the  winding  stair  where  it  was  necessary  to  go  bent 
half  double  ;  only  a  litlie  child  could  have  stood  upright. 


182  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

With  heads  dizzy  from  the  blow  and  03*68  half  blinded  by 
the  sudden  darkness,  we  stumbled  on,  and  brought  out  in 
a  passage-way,  perhaps  three  feet  wide  and  ten  long,  from 
which  opened  four  rooms  :  one  the  kitchen,  a  totally  dark 
closet,  not  over  six  feet  square ;  a  tiny  grate,  a  chair, 
table,  and  a  bunk  in  the  wall,  where  the  servant  slept, 
were  all  its  furniture.  The  woman  lighted  a  candle  to 
show  us  how  convenient  was  this  bunk  for  the  maid  "  to 
lie."  Standing  in  the  middle  of  the  narrow  passage,  one 
could  reach  his  head  into  kitchen,  parlor,  and  both  bed- 
rooms without  changing  his  position.  The  four  rooms 
together  would  hardly  have  made  one  good-sized  chamber. 
Nothing  but  its  exquisite  neatness  and  order  saved  the 
place  from  being  insupportable !  Even  those  would  not 
save  it  when  herring  suppers  should  be  broiling  in  the 
closet  surnamed  kitchen.  Up  a  still  smaller,  narrower 
crevice  in  the  wall  led  a  second  "self-contained  stair," 
dark  as  midnight,  and  so  low  roofed  there  was  no  standing 
upright  in  it,  even  at  the  beginning.  This  led  to  what  the 
landlady  called  the  "  lodgers'  flairt."  We  had  not  courage 
to  venture  up,  though  she  was  exceedingly  anxious  to  show 
us  her  seven  good  bedrooms,  three  double  and  four  single, 
which  were  nightly  filled  with  lodgers,  at  a  shilling  a  night. 

Only  the  "  verra  rayspectable,"  she  said,  came  to  lodge 
with  her.  Her  husband  was  "  verra  particular."  Trades- 
people from  the  country  were  the  chief  of  their  customers, 
"  an'  the  same  a-comin'  for  seven  year,  noo."  No  doubt 
she  has  as  lively  a  pride,  and  gets  as  many  satisfactions 
between  these  narrow  walls,  as  did  the  lords  and  ladies  of 
1700.  Evidently  not  the  least  of  her  satisfactions  was 
the  fact  that  those  lords  and  ladies  had  lived  there  before 
her. 

Nowhere  are  Auld  Reekie's  antitheses  of  new  and  old 
more  emphasized  than  in  the  Cowgate.  In  1530  it  was 
an  elegant  suburb.  The  city  walls  even  then  extended 
to  enclose  it,  and  it  was  eloquently  described,  in  an  old 
divine's  writings,  as  the  place  "  ubi  nihil  est  bundle  aut 
rasticum,  sed  omnia  magnifica." 

In  one  of  its  grassy  lanes  the  Earl  of  Galloway  built  a 
mansion.  His  countess  often  went  to  pay  visits  to  her 
neighbors,  in  great  state,  driving  six  horses ;  and  it  not 
infrequently  happened  that  when  her  ladyship  stepped 


GLINTS  IN  AULD  REEKIE.  183 

Into  her  coach,  the  leaders  were  standing  opposite  the  door 
at  which  she  intended  to  alight. 

Here  dwelt,  in  1617,  the  famous  "  Tarn  o'  the  Cowgate," 
Earl  of  Haddington,  boon  companion  of  King  James,  who 
came  often  to  dine  with  him,  and  gave  him  the  familiar 
nickname  of  Tarn.  Tarn  was  so  rich  he  was  vulgarly 
believed  to  have  the  philosopher's  stone ;  but  he  himself 
once  gave  a  more  probable  explanation  of  his  wealth,  saying 
that  his  only  secret  lay  in  two  rules,  —  "  never  to  put  off  till 
to-morrow  that  which  could  be  done  to-day,"  and  "  never 
to  trust  to  another  what  his  own  hand  could  execute." 

To-day  there  is  not  in  all  the  world,  outside  the  Jewish 
Ghetto  of  Rome,  so  loathly  wretched  a  street  as  this  same 
Cowgate.  Even  at  high  noon  it  is  not  always  safe  to  walk 
through  it ;  and  there  are  many  of  its  wynds  into  which 
no  man  would  go  without  protection  of  the  police.  Simply 
to  drive  through  it  is  harrowing.  The  place  is  indescriba- 
ble. It  seems  a  perpetual  and  insatiable  carnival  of  vice 
and  misery.  The  misery  alone  would  be  terrible  enough 
to  see  ;  but  the  leering,  juggling,  insolent  vice  added  makes 
it  indeed  hellish.  Every  curbstone,  door-sill,  alley  mouth, 
window,  swarms  with  faces  out  of  which  has  gone  every 
trace  of  self-respect  or  decencj* ;  babies'  faces  as  bad  as 
the  worst,  and  the  most  aged  faces  worst  of  all.  To  pause 
on  the  sidewalk  is  to  be  surrounded,  in  a  moment,  by  a 
dangerous  crowd  of  half-naked  boys  and  girls,  whining, 
begging,  elbowing,  cursing,  and  fighting.  Giving  of  an  alms 
is  like  pouring  oil  on  a  fire.  The  whole  gang  is  ablaze 
with  envy  and  attack  :  the  fierce  and  unscrupulous  pillage 
of  the  seventeenth  century  is  re-enacted  in  miniature  in 
the  Cowgate  every  day,  when  an  injudicious  stranger, 
passing  through,  throws  a  handful  of  pennies  to  the  beg- 
gars. The  general  look  of  hopeless  degradation  in  the 
spot  is  heightened  by  the  great  number  of  old  -  clothes 
shops  along  the  whole  line  of  the  street.  In  the  dajrs 
when  the  Cowgate  was  an  elegant  suburb,  the  citizens 
were  permitted  by  law  to  extend  their  upper  stories  seven 
feet  into  the  street,  provided  the}"  would  build  them  of 
wood  cut  in  the  Borough  Forest,  a  forest  that  harbored 
robbers  dangerous  to  the  town.  These  projecting  upper 
stories  arc  invaluable  now  to  the  old-clothes  venders,  who 
hang  from  them  their  hideous  wares,  in  double  and  treble 


184  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

•lines,  fluttering  over  the  heads  and  in  the  faces  of  passers- 
by  ;  the  wood  of  the  Borough  Forest  thus,  by  a  strange  irony 
of  fate,  still  continuing  to  harbor  dangers  to  public  welfare. 
If  these  close-packed  tiers  of  dangling  rags  in  the  Cowgate 
were  run  out  in  a  straight  single  line,  the}'  would  be  miles 
long  ;  a  sad  beggars'  arras  to  behold.  The  preponderance 
of  tattered  finery  in  it  adds  to  its  melancholy :  shreds  of 
damask  ;  dirty  lace  ;  theatrical  costumes  ;  artificial  flowers 
so  crumpled,  broken,  and  soiled  that  they  would  seem  to 
have  been  trodden  in  gutters,  —  there  was  an  indefinable 
horror  in  the  thought  that  there  could  be  even  in  the  Cow- 
gate  a  woman  creature  who  could  think  herself  adorned 
by  such  mockeries  of  blossoms.  But  I  saw  more  than  one 
poor  soul  look  at  them  with  longing  eyes,  finger  them, 
haggle  at  the  price,  and  walk  away  disappointed  that  she 
could  not  buy. 

The  quaint  mottoes  here  and  there  in  the  grimy  walls, 
built  in  when  the  Cowgate  people  were  not  only  comfort- 
able but  pious,  must  serve  often  now  to  point  bitter  jests 
among  the  ungodly.  On  one  wretched,  reeking  tenement 
is:  "Oh,  magnify  the  Lord  with  me,  and  let  us  exalt  his 
name  together.  1643."  On  another,  "  All  my  trist  is  in 
ye  Lord." 

A  token  I  saw  in  the  Cowgate  of  one  life  there  not 
without  hope  and  the  capacity  of  enjoyment.  It  was  in  a 
small  window,  nine  stories  up  from  the  ground,  in  a  wynd 
so  close  that  hands  might  be  clasped  from  house  to  house 
across  it.  It  was  a  tiny  thing,  but  my  eye  fell  on  it  with 
as  much  relief  as  on  a  rift  of  blue  sky  in  a  storm :  it  was 
a  little  green  fern  growing  in  a  pot.  Outside  the  window 
it  stood,  on  a  perilously  narrow  ledge.  As  I  watched  it  I 
grew  frightened,  lest  the  wind  should  blow  it  down,  or  a 
vicious  neighbor  stone  it  off.  It  seemed  the  brave  signal 
flying  of  a  forlorn  hope,  of  a  dauntless,  besieged  soul  that 
would  never  surrender ;  and  I  shall  recollect  it  long  after 
every  other  picture  of  the  Cowgate  scenes  has  grown  dim. 

The  more  respectable  of  the  pawnbrokers'  or  second- 
hand-goods shops  in  Edinburgh  are  interesting  places  to 
rummage.  If  there  were  no  other  record  of  the  slow  decay 
and  dwindling  fortunes  of  the  noble  Scottish  folk,  it  could 
be  read  in  the  great  number  of  small  dealers  in  relics  of 
the  olden  time. 


GLINTS  IN  AULD  REEKIE.  185 

Old  buckles  and  brooches  and  clan  badges ;  chains, 
lockets,  seals,  rings  ;  faded  miniatures,  on  ivory  or  in  mo- 
saics, of  women  as  far  back  as  Mary's  time,  loved  then  as 
well  as  was  ever  Mary  herself,  but  forgotten  now  as  if  they 
had  never  been  ;  swords  rusty,  bent,  battered,  and  stained ; 
spoons  with  forgotten  crests ;  punch-ladles  worn  smooth 
with  the  merry-makings  of  generations,  —  all  these  one 
ma}r  find  in  scores  of  little  one-roomed  shops,  kept  per- 
haps by  aged  dames  with  the  ven-  aronia  of  the  antique 
Puritanism  lingering  about  them  still. 

In  such  a  room  as  this  I  found  a  Scotch  pebble  brooch 
with  a  quaint  silver  setting,  reverently  and  cautiously 
locked  in  a  glass  case.  On  the  back  of  it  had  been 
scratched,  apparently  with  a  pin,  "  Margret  Fleming,  from 
her  brother."  I  bore  it  away  with  me  triumphantly,  sure 
that  it  had  belonged  to  an  ancestor  of  Pet  Marjorie. 

Almost  as  full  of  old-time  atmosphere  as  the  pawnbrok- 
ers' shops  are  the  antiquarian  bookstores.  Here  one  may 
possess  himself,  if  he  likes,  of  well-thumbed  volumes  with 
heraldic  crests  on  titlepages,  dating  back  to  the  earliest 
reading  done  by  noble  earls  and  baronets  in  Scotland ; 
even  to  the  time  when  not  to  know  how  to  read  was  no  in- 
delible disgrace.  In  one  of  these  shops,  on  the  day  I 
bought  Margret  Fleming's  brooch,  I  found  an  old  torn 
copy  of  "  Pet  Marjorie."  Speaking  of  Dr.  Brown  and  Rab 
to  the  bookseller,  —  himself  almost  a  relic  of  antiquity,  — 
I  was  astonished  and  greatly  amused  to  hear  him  reply : 
"It's  a'  a  feection.  .  .  .  He  can't  write  without  it.  ... 
I  knoo  that  darg.  ...  A  verra  neece  darg  he  was,  but  — 
a  —  a  —  a  "  —  with  a  shake  of  the  head  —  "  it 's  a  verra 
neece  story,  verra  neece.  .  .  .  He  wrote  it  up,  up ;  not 
but  that  Rab  was  a  verra  neece  darg.  I  knoo  the  darg 
wull." 

Not  a  word  of  more  definite  disclaimer  or  contradiction 
could  I  win  from  the  canny  old  Scot.  But  to  have  hastily 
called  the  whole  ston'  a  lee,  from  beginning  to  end,  would 
hardly  have  shaken  one's  confidence  in  it  so  much  as  did 
the  thoughtful  deliberation  of  his  "  He  was  a  verra  neece 
darg.  I  knoo  the  darg  wull." 

One  of  our  "  cawdies,"  during  our  stay  in  Edinburgh, 
was  a  remarkable  fellow.  After  being  for  twenty  years  a 
gentleman's  servant,  he  had  turned  his  back  on  aristocracy, 


186  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

and  betaken  himself  to  the  streets  for  a  living ;  driving 
cabs,  or  piloting  strangers  around  the  city,  as  might  be. 
But  his  earlier  habits  of  good  behavior  were  strong  in 
him  still,  and  came  to  the  surface  quickly  in  associations 
which  revived  them.  His  conversation  reminded  us  for- 
cibly of  somebody's  excellent  saying  that  Scotland  would 
always  be  Scott-land.  Not  a  line  of  Scott's  novels  which 
this  vagabond  cawdie  did  not  seemingly  know  by  heart. 
Scottish  history,  too,  he  had  at  his  tongue's  end,  and  its 
most  familiar  episodes  sounded  new  and  entertaining  as  he 
phrased  them.  Even  the  death  of  Queen  Mary  seemed 
freshly  stated,  as  he  put  it,  when,  after  summing  up  the 
cruelties  she  had  experienced  at  the  hands  of  Elizabeth,  he 
wound  up  with,  "And  finally  she  beheaded  her,  and  that 
was  the  last  of  her,"  —  a  succinctness  of  close  which  some 
of  Mary's  historians  would  have  done  well  to  simulate. 

Of  Jeanie  Deans  and  Dumbiedikes  he  spoke  as  of  old 
acquaintances.  He  pointed  out  a  spot  in  the  misty 'blue 
distance  where  was  Dumbiedikes'  house,  where  Jeauie's 
sweetheart  dwelt,  and  where  the  road  lay  on  which  Jeanie 
went  to  London. 

"  It  was  there  the  old  road  to  London  lay  ;  and  would  n't 
you  think  it  more  natural,  sir,  that  it  was  that  way  she 
went,  and  it  was  there  she  met  Dumbiedikes,  and  he  gave 
her  the  purse  ?  I  '11  always  maintain,  sir,  that  it  was  there 
she  got  it." 

Of  the  two  women,  Jeanie  Deans  and  Mary  Queen  of 
Scots,  Jeanie  was  evidently  the  vivider  and  more  real  in 
his  thoughts. 

The  second  day  of  our  stay  in  Edinburgh  was  a  gay  day 
in  the  castle.  The  71st  Highlanders  had  just  returned 
from  a  twelvemonth's  stay  at  Gibraltar.  It  was  people's 
day.  Everj^where  the  bronzed,  tired,  happy-looking  fel- 
lows, in  their  smartened  uniforms,  were  to  be  encountered, 
strolling,  lounging,  sitting  with  sweethearts  or  wives,  — 
more  of  the  former  than  the  latter.  It  struck  me  also  that 
the  women  were  less  good-looking  than  the  men  ;  but  they 
were  all  beautified  by  happiness,  and  the  merry  sounds  of 
their  laughter,  and  the  rumble  of  skittles  playing  filled  all 
the  place.  Inside  the  castle,  the  room  in  which  the  regalia 
were  on  exhibition  was  thronged  with  country  people, 
gazing  reverently  on  its  splendors. 


GLINTS  IN  AULD  REEKIE.  187 

"  Keep  yer  eye  on  't,  as  ye  walk  by,  an*  mark  the 
changes  o'  't,"  1  heard  one  old  lad}-  sa}*  to  her  husband, 
whose  wandering  gaze  seemed  to  her  neglectful  of  the 
opportunity. 

A  few  gay-dressed  women,  escorted  by  officers,  held 
themselves  apart  from  the  soldiers'  sweethearting,  and 
were  disposed,  I  thought,  to  look  a  little  scornfully  on  it. 
The  soldiers  did  not  seem  to  mind  the  affront,  if  they  saw- 
it  ;  no  doubt,  they  thought  their  own  sweethearts  far  the 
better  looking,  and  if  they  had  ever  heard  of  it  would  have 
quoted  with  hearty  good-will  the  old  ballad,  — 

"  The  lassies  o'  the  Cannon  gate, 
Oh,  they  are  wondrous  nice : 
They  winna  gie  a  single  kiss, 
But  for  a  double  price. 

"  Gar  hang  them,  gar  hang  them, 

Hie  upon  a  tree ; 
For  we  '11  get  better  up  the  gate, 
For  a  bawbee  !  " 

Most  picturesque  of  all  the  figures  to  be  seen  in  Edin- 
burgh are  the  Newhaven  fishwives.  With  short,  full  blue 
cloth  petticoats,  reaching  barely  to  their  ankles ;  white 
blouses  and  gay  kerchiefs  ;  big,  long-sleeved  cloaks  of  the 
same  blue  cloth,  fastened  at  the  throat,  but  flying  loose, 
sleeves  and  all,  as  if  thrown  on  in  haste ;  the  girls  bare- 
headed ;  the  married  women  with  white  caps,  standing  up 
stiff  and  straight  in  a  point  on  the  top  of  the  head  ;  two  big 
wickerwork  creels,  one  above  the  other,  full  of  fish,  packed 
secure ly,  on  their  broad  shoulders,  and  held  in  place  by  a 
stout  leather  strap  passing  round  their  foreheads,  they  pull 
along  at  a  steady,  striding  gait,  up  hill  and  down,  carrying 
weights  that  it  taxes  a  man's  strength  merel}'  to  lift.  In 
fact,  it  is  a  fishwife's  boast  that  she  will  run  with  a  weight 
which  it  takes  two  men  to  put  on  her  back.  By  reason  of 
this  great  strength  on  the  part  of  the  women,  and  their 
immemorial  habit  of  exercising  it ;  perhaps  also  from  other 
causes  far  back  in  the  earlv  da}'s  of  Jutland,  where  these 
curious  Newhaven  fishing-folk  are  said  to  have  originated, 
—  it  has  come  about  that  the  Newhaven  men  are  a  singularly 
docile  and  submissive  race.  The  wives  keep  all  the  money 
which  they  receive  for  the  fish,  and  the  husbands  take  what 


188  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

is  given  them,  — a  singular  reversion  of  the  situation  in 
most  communities.  I  did  not  believe  this  when  it  was 
told  me  ;  so  I  stopped  three  fishwives  one  day,  and  with- 
out mincing  matters  put  the  question  direct  to  them.  Two 
of  them  were  young,  one  old.  The  young  women  laughed 
saucilv,  and  the  old  woman  smiled  ;  but  they  all  replied 
unhesitatingly,  that  they  had  the  spending  of  all  the 
money. 

"  It's  a'  spent  i'  the  hoos,"  said  one,  anxious  not  to  be 
thought  too  selfish, — "it's  a'  spent  i'  the  hoos.  The 
men,  they  cam  home  an'  tak  their  sleep,  an'  then  they'll 
be  aff  agen." 

"  It  'ud  never  do  for  the  husbands  to  stoop  in  tha  city, 
an'  be  spendin'  a'  the  money,"  added  the  old  woman,  with 
severe  emphasis. 

I  learned  afterward  that  on  the  present  system  of  buy- 
ing and  selling  the  fish,  the  fishermen  do  receive  from  their 
labor  an  income  independent  of  their  wives.  They  are 
the  first  sellers  of  the  fish,  —  selling  them  in  quantity  to 
the  wholesale  dealers,  who  sell  in  turn  at  auction  to  the 
"  retail  trade,"  represented  by  the  wives.  This  seems  an 
unjust  system,  and  is  much  resented  by  both  husbands 
and  wives  ;  but  it  has  been  established  by  law,  and  there 
is  no  help  for  it.  It  came  in  with  the  introduction  of  the 
steam  trawlers.  "•  They're  the  deestrooction  o'  the  place," 
said  one  of  the  fishwomen.  "  A  mon  canna  go  oot  wi'  his 
lines  an'  mak  a  livin'  noo.  They  just  drag  everything ; 
they  tak  a'  the  broods  ;  they  're  dooin'  a  worrld  o'  harrm. 
There  's  somethin'  a  dooin'  aboot  it  in  the  House  o'  Com- 
mons, noo,  but  a  canna  till  hoo  it  wull  go.  They  nil  be 
the  deestrooction  o'  this  place,  if  they  're  na  pit  stop  to." 
And  she  shook  her  fist  vindictivel}"  at  a  puffing  trawler 
which  had  just  pushed  away  from  the  wharf. 

Whoever  would  see  the  Newhaven  fishwives  at  their 
best  must  be  on  the  Newhaven  wharf  by  seven  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  on  a  day  when  the  trawlers  come  in  and  the 
fish  is  sold.  The  scene  is  a  study  for  a  painter. 

The  fish  are  in  long,  narrow  boxes,  on  the  wharf,  ranged 
at  the  base  of  the  sea  wall ;  some  sorted  out,  in  piles, 
each  kind  by  itself:  skates,  with  their  long  tails,  which 
look  vicious,  as  if  they  could  kick ;  hake,  witches,  brill, 
sole,  flounders,  huge  catfish,  crayfish,  and  herrings,  by  the 


GLINTS  IN  AULD  REEKIE.  189 

ton.  The  wall  is  crowded  with  men,  Edinburgh  fishmon- 
gers, come  to  buy  cheap  on  the  spot.  The  wall  is  not 
over  two  feet  wide  ;  and  here  they  stand,  lean  over,  jostle, 
slip  by  to  right  and  left  of  each  other,  and  run  up  and 
down  in  their  eager  haste  to  catch  the  eye  of  one  auction- 
eer, or  to  get  first  speech  with  another.  The  wharf  is 
crowded  with  women,  —  an  army  in  blue,  two  hundred, 
three  hundred,  at  a  time ;  white  caps  bobbing,  elbows 
thrusting,  shrill  voices  crying,  fiery  blue  eyes  shining,  it 
is  a  sight  worth  going  to  Scotland  for.  If  one  has  had  an 
affection  for  Christie  Johnstone,  it  is  a  delightful  return  of 
his  old  admiration  for  her.  A  dozen  faces  which  might  be 
Christie's  own  are  flashing  up  from  the  crowd  ;  one  under- 
stands on  the  instant  how  that  best  of  good  stories  came  to 
be  written.  A  man  with  eyes  in  his  head  and  a  pen  in  his 
hand  could  not  have  done  less.  Such  fire,  such  honesty, 
sufth  splendor  of  vitality,  kindle  the  women's  faces.  To 
spend  a  few  days  among  them  would  be  to  see  Christie 
Johnstone  dramatized  on  all  sides. 

On  the  morning  when  I  drove  out  from  Edinburgh  to 
see  this  scene,  a  Scotch  mist  was  simmering  down,  —  so 
warm  that  at  first  it  seemed  of  no  consequence  whatever, 
so  cold  that  all  of  a  sudden  one  found  himself  pierced 
through  and  through  with  icy  shivers.  This  is  the  univer- 
sal qualit}'  of  a  Scotch  mist  or  drizzle. 

The  Newhaven  wharf  is  a  narrow  pier  running  out  to 
sea.  On  one  side  lay  the  steam  trawlers,  which  had  just 
unloaded  their  freight ;  on  the  other  side,  on  the  narrow, 
rampart-like  wall  of  stone,  swarmed  the  fishmonger  men. 
In  this  line  I  took  my  place,  and  the  chances  of  the  scram- 
ble. Immediately  the  jolly  fishwives  caught  sight  of  me, 
and  began  to  nod  and  smile.  They  knew  very  well  I  was 
there  to  "  speir  "  at  them. 

"  Ye  '11  tak  cauld ! "  cried  one  motherly  old  soul,  with 
her  white  hair  blowing  wildly  about  almost  enough  to  lift 
the  cap  off  her  head.  "  Com  doon  !  Ye  '11  tak  cauld." 

I  smiled,  and  pointed  to  my  water-proof  cloak,  down 
which,  it  must  be  admitted,  the  "  mist"  was  trickling  in 
streams,  while  the  cloak  itself  flapped  in  the  wind  like  a 
loose  sail.  She  shook  her  head  scornfully. 

"  It's  a  grat  plass  to  tak  cauld  !  "  she  cried.  "  Ye  '11 
doo  wull  to  com  doon." 


190  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

There  were  three  auctioneers :  one,  a  handsome,  fair- 
haired,  blue-eyed  young  fellow,  was  plainly  a  favorite  with 
the  women.  They  flocked  after  him  as  he  passed  from  one 
to  another  of  the  different  lots  of  fish.  They  crowded  in 
close  circles  around  him,  three  and  four  deep ;  pushing, 
struggling,  rising  on  tiptoes  to  look  over  each  other'8 
shoulders  and  get  sight  of  the  fish. 

44  What 's  offered  for  this  lot  o'  fine  herrings?  One  !  One 
and  sax  !  Thrippence  ha' !  Going,  going,  gone  !  "  rang 
above  all  the  clatter  and  chatter  of  the  women's  tongues. 
It  was  so  swift  that  it  seemed  over  before  it  was  fairly 
begun  ;  and  the  surging  circles  had  moved  along  to  a  new 
spot  and  a  new  trade.  The  eyes  of  the  women  were  fixed 
on  the  auctioneer's  eyes  ;  they  beckoned  ;  they  shook  fore- 
fingers at  him  ;  now  and  then  a  tall,  stalwart  one,  reach- 
ing over  less  able-bodied  comrades,  took  him  by  the 
shoulder,  and  compelled  him  to  turn  her  way ;  one,  most 
fearless  of  all,  literallj-  gripped  him  by  the  ear  and  pulled 
his  head  around,  shrieking  out  her  bid.  When  the  pres- 
sure got  unbearable,  the  young  fellow  would  shake  himself 
like  a  Newfoundland  dog,  and,  laughing  good-naturedly, 
whirl  his  arms  wide  round  to  clear  a  breathing  space  ;  the 
women  would  fall  back  a  pace  or  two,  but  in  a  moment  the 
rings  would  close  up  again,  tighter  than  ever. 

The  efforts  of  those  in  the  outer  ring  to  break  through 
or  see  over  the  inner  ones  were  droll.  Arms  and  hands 
and  heads  seemed  fairly  interlinked  and  interwoven.  Some- 
times a  pair  of  hands  won  >  come  into  sight,  pushing  their 
way  between  two  bodies,  Ic  r/  down,  — just  the  two  hands, 
nothing  more,  breaking  way  for  themselves,  as  if  in  a 
thicket  of  underbrush  ;  presently  the  arms  followed  ;  and 
then,  with  a  quick  thrust  of  the  arms  to  right  and  left,  the 
space  would  be  widened  enough  to  let  in  the  head,  and 
when  that  was  fairly  through  the  victor}-  was  won .  Straight- 
ening herself  with  a  big  leap,  the  woman  bounded  in  front 
of  the  couple  she  had  so  skilfully  separated,  and  a  buzzing 
"bicker"  of  angry  words  would  rise  for  a  moment;  but 
there  was  no  time  to  waste  in  bad  temper  where  bargains 
were  to  be  made  or  lost  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye. 

An  old  sailor,  who  stood  near  me  on  the  wall,  twice 
saved  me  from  going  backwards  into  the  sea,  in  my  hasty 
efforts  to  better  my  standpoint.  Tie  also  seemed  to  be  there 


GLINTS  IN  AULD  REEKIE.  191 

simply  as  a  spectator,  and  I  asked  him  how  the  women 
knew  what  they  were  buying ;  buying,  as  they  did,  by  the 
pile  or  the  box. 

"Oh,  they'll  giss,  verra  near,"  he  said;  "they've  an 
eye  on  the  fish  sense  they  're  bawn.  God  knows  it 's  verra 
little  they  mak,"  he  added,  "an'  they '11  carry 's  much's 
two  men  o'  us  can  lift.  They  're  extrawnery  strang." 

As  a  lot  of  catfish  were  thrown  down  at  our  feet,  he 
looked  at  them  with  a  shudder  and  exclaimed,  — 

"  I  'd  no  eat  that." 

' '  Why  not  ?  "  said  I.     ' '  Are  they  not  good  ?  " 

"  Ah,  I  'd  no  eat  it,"  he  replied,  with  a  look  of  supersti- 
tious terror  spreading  over  his  face.  "  It  doesna  look 
richt." 

A  fresh  trawler  came  in  just  as  the  auction  had  nearly 
ended.  The  excitement  renewed  itself  fiercely.  The 
crowd  surged  over  to  the  opposite  side  of  the  pier,  and  a 
Babel  of  voices  arose.  The  skipper  was  short  and  fat,  and 
in  his  dripping  oilskin  suit  looked  like  a  cross  between  a 
catfish  and  a  frog. 

"Here,  you  Rob,"  shouted  the  auctioneer,  "what  do 
3'ou  add  to  this  fine  lot  o'  herrin'  ?  " 

"  Herring  be  d d ! "  growled  the  skipper,  out  of 

temper,  for  some  reason  of  his  own ;  at  which  a  whirring 
sound  of  ejaculated  disapprobation  burst  from  the  women's 
lips. 

The  fish  were  in  great  tanks  on  the  deck.  Quickly  the 
sailors  dipped  up  pails  of  the  sea-water,  dashed  it  over 
them,  and  piled  them  into  baskets,  in  shining,  slippery 
masses :  the  whole  load  was  on  the  pier,  sorted,  and  sold 
in  a  few  minutes. 

Then  the  women  settled  down  to  the  work  of  assorting 
and  packing  up  their  fish.  One  after  another  they  shoul- 
dered their  creels  and  set  off  for  Edinburgh.  They  seemed 
to  have  much  paying  back  and  forth  of  silver  among  them- 
selves, one  small  piece  of  silver  that  I  noticed  actually 
travelling  through  four  different  hands  in  the  five  minutes 
during  which  I  watched  it.  Each  woman  wore  under  her 
apron,  in  front,  a  sort  of  apron-like  bag,  in  which  she  car- 
ried her  money.  There  was  evidently  rivalry  among  them. 
They  spied  closely  on  each  other's  loads,  and  did  some 
trunk-king  and  exchange  before  they  set  off.  One  poor 


192  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

old  creature  had  bought  only  a  few  crayfish,  and  as  she 
lifted  her  creel  to  her  back,  and  crawled  away,  the  women 
standing  by  looked  over  into  her  basket,  and  laughed  and 
jeered  at  her;  but  she  gave  no  sign  of  hearing  a  word 
they  said. 

Some  of  them  were  greatly  discontented  with  their  pur- 
chases when  they  came  to  examine  them  closely,  espe- 
cially one  woman  who  had  bought  a  box  of  flounders.  She 
emptied  them  on  the  ground,  and  sorted  the  few  big  ones, 
which  had  been  artfully  laid  on  the  top ;  then,  putting  the 
rest,  which  were  all  small,  in  a  pile  by  themselves,  she 
pointed  contemptuously  to  the  contrast,  and,  with  a  toss 
of  her  head,  ran  after  the  auctioneer,  and  led  him  by  the 
sleeve  back  to  the  spot  where  her  fish  lay.  She  was  as 
fierce  as  Christie  herself  could  have  been  at  the  imposition. 
She  had  paid  the  price  for  big  flounders,  and  had  got  small 
ones .  The  auctioneer  opened  his  book  and  took  out  his 
pencil  to  correct  the  entry  which  had  been  made  against 
her. 

"  Wull,  tak  aff  saxpence,"  he  said. 

"Na!  na!"  cried  she.  "They're  too  dear  at  seven 
saxpence." 

"  Wull,  tak  aff  a  saxpence;  it  is  written  noo,  —  seven 
shillin'." 

She  nodded,  and  began  packing  up  the  flounders. 

"  Will  you  make  something  on  them  at  that  price?  "  I 
asked  her. 

"  Wull,  I'll  mak  me  money  back,"  she  replied  ;  but  her 
eyes  twinkled,  and  I  fancy  she  had  got  a  very  good  bar- 
gain, as  bargains  go  in  Newhaven  ;  it  being  thought  there 
a  good  day's  work  to  clear  three  shillings,  — a  pitiful  sum, 
when  a  woman,  to  earn  it,  must  trudge  from  Newhaven  to 
Edinburgh  (two  miles)  with  a  hundred  pounds  of  fish  on 
her  back,  and  then  toil  up  and  down  Edinburgh  hills  sell- 
ing it  from  door  to  door.  One  shilling  on  every  pound  is 
the  auctioneer's  fee.  He  has  all  the  women's  names  in 
his  book,  and  it  is  safe  to  trust  them  ;  they  never  seek  to 
cheat,  or  even  to  put  off  paying.  "  They'd  rather  pay 
than  not,"  the  blue-eyed  auctioneer  said  to  me.  "  The}'  're 
the  honestest  folks  i'  the  warld." 

As  the  last  group  was  dispersing,  one  old  woman,  evi- 
dently in  a  state  of  fierce  anger,  approached  and  poured 


GLINTS  IN  AULD  REEKIE.  193 

out  a  torrent  of  Scotch  as  bewildering  and  as  unintelli- 
gible to  me  as  if  it  had  been  Chinese.  Her  companions 
gazed  at  her  in  astonishment ;  presently  they  began  to 
reply,  and  in  a  few  seconds  there  was  as  fine  a  "  rippet" 
going  on  as  could  have  been  heard  in  Cowgate  in  Tarn's 
day.  At  last  a  woman  of  near  her  own  age  sprang  for- 
ward, and  approaching  her  with  a  determined  face,  lifted 
her  right  hand  with  an  authoritative  gesture,  and  said  in 
vehement  indignation,  which  reminded  me  of  Christie 
again,  — 

"  Keep  yersil,  an'  baud  yer  tongue,  noo ! " 

"What  is  she  saying?"  I  asked.  "What  is  the 
matter  ? " 

"  Eh,  it  is  jist  nathin'  at  a',"  she  replied.  "  She 's  thet 
angry,  she  doesna  knaw  hersil." 

The  faces  of  the  Newhaven  women  are  fuh1  of  beauty, 
even  those  of  the  old  women :  their  blue  e}Tes  are  bright 
and  laughing,  long  after  the  sea  wind  and  sun  have  tanned 
and  shrivelled  their  skins  and  bleached  their  hair.  Blue 
eyes  and  yellow  hair  are  the  predominant  type  ;  but  there 
are  some  faces  with  dark  hazel  eyes  of  rare  beaut}'  and 
very  dark  hair,  —  still  more  beautiful,  —  which,  spite  of  its 
darkness,  shows  glints  of  red  in  the  sun.  The  dark  blue 
of  their  gowns  and  cloaks  is  the  best  color-frame  and  set- 
ting their  faces  could  have  ;  the  bunched  fulness  of  the 
petticoat  is  saved  from  looking  clumsy  by  being  so  short, 
and  the  cloaks  are  in  themselves  graceful  garments.  The 
walking  in  a  bent  posture,  with  such  heavy  loads  on  the 
back,  has  given  to  all  the  women  an  abnormal  breadth  of 
hip,  which  would  be  hideous  in  any  other  dress  than  their 
own.  This  is  so  noticeable  that  I  thought  perhaps  they 
wore  under  their  skirts,  to  set  them  out,  a  roll,  such  as  is 
worn  by  some  of  the  Bavarian  peasants.  But  when  I 
asked  one  of  the  women,  she  replied,  — 

"  Na,  na,  jist  the  flannel ;  a'  tuckit." 

"  Tucked  all  the  way  up  to  the  belt?  "  said  I. 

"  Na,  na,"  laughing  as  if  that  were  a  folly  never  con- 
ceived of,  —  "  na,  na."  And  in  a  twinkling  she  whipped 
her  petticoat  high  up,  to  show  me  the  under  petticoat,  of 
the  same  heavy  blue  cloth,  tucked  only  a  few  inches  deep. 
Her  massive  hips  alone  were  responsible  for  the  strange 
contour  of  her  figure. 

13 


194  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

The  last  person  to  leave  the  wharf  was  a  young  man 
with  a  creel  of  fish  on  his  back.  My  friend  the  sailor 
glanced  at  him  with  contempt. 

" There's  the  only  man  in  all  Scotland  that  'ud  be  seen 
carry  in'  a  creel  o'  fish  on  his  back  like  a  woman,"  said  he. 
"He's  na  pride  aboot  him." 

* '  But  why  should  n't  men  cany  creels  ?  "  I  asked.  "I'm 
sure  it  is  very  hard  work  for  women." 

The  sailor  eyed  me  for  a  moment  perplexedly,  and  then 
as  if  it  were  waste  of  words  to  undertake  to  explain  self- 
evident  propositions,  resumed, — 

"  He  worked  at  it  when  he  was  a  boy,  with  his  mother ; 
an'  now  he 's  no  pride  left.  There 's  the  whole  village  been 
at  him  to  get  a  barrow ;  but  he  '11  not  do 't.  He 's  na  pride 
aboot  him." 

What  an  interesting  addition  it  would  be  to  the  statistics 
of  foods  eaten  by  different  peoples  to  collect  the  statistics 
of  the  different  foods  with  which  pride's  hunger  is  satisfied 
in  different  countries  !  Its  stomach  has  as  man}T  and  op- 
posite standards  as  the  human  digestive  apparatus.  It  is, 
like  everything  else,  all  and  only  a  question  of  climate. 
Not  a  nabob  a^-where  who  gets  more  daily  satisfaction 
out  of  despising  his  neighbors  than  the  Newhaven  fisher- 
men do  out  of  their  conscious  superiority  to  this  poor  soul, 
who  lugs  his  fish  in  a  basket  on  his  back  like  a  woman, 
and  has  "  na  pride  aboot  him." 

If  I  had  had  time  and  opportunity  to  probe  one  la}Ter 
farther  down  in  Newhaven  societ3',  no  doubt  I  should  have 
come  upon  something  which  even  this  pariah,  the  fish- 
carrying  man,  would  scorn  to  be  seen  doing. 

After  the  last  toiling  fishwife  had  disappeared  in  the 
distance,  and  the  wharf  and  the  village  had  quieted  down 
into  sombre  stillness,  I  drove  to  "  The  Peacock,"  and  ate 
bread  and  milk  in  a  room  which,  if  it  were  not  the  very 
one  in  which  Christie  and  her  lover  supped,  at  least  looked 
out  on  the  same  sea  they  looked  upon.  And  a  very  gray, 
ugly  sea  it  was,  too ;  just  such  an  one  as  used  to  stir 
Christie's  soul  with  a  heat  of  desire  to  spin  out  into  it, 
and  show  the  boys  she  was  without  fear.  On  the  stony 
beach  below  the  inn  a  woman  was  spreading  linen  to  dry. 
Her  motions  as  she  raised  and  bent,  and  raised  and  bent, 
over  her  task  were  graceful  beyond  measure.  Scuds  of 


GLINTS  IN  AULD  REEKIE.  195 

rain-drops  swept  by  now  and  then  ;  and  she  would  stop  her 
work,  and  straightening  herself  into  a  splendid  pose,  with 
one  hand  on  her  hip,  throw  back  her  head,  and  sweep  the 
whole  sky  with  her  look,  uncertain  whether  to  keep  on 
with  her  labor  or  not ;  then  bend  again,  and  make  greater 
haste  than  before. 

As  I  drove  out  of  the  village  I  found  a  knot  of  the 
women  gossiping  at  a  corner.  The}'  had  gathered  around 
a  young  wife,  who  had  evidently  brought  out  her  baby  for 
the  village  to  admire.  It  was  dressed  in  very  lt  braw  at- 
tire" for  Newhaven,  — snowy  white,  and  embroider}-,  and 
blue  ribbons.  It  was  but  four  weeks  old,  and  its  tiny  red 
face  was  nearly  covered  up  by  the  fine  clothes.  I  said  to  a 
white-haired  woman  in  the  group,  — 

"  Do  you  recollect  when  it  was  all  open  down  to  the  sea 
here,  —  before  this  second  line  of  newer  cottages  was 
built?" 

She  shook  her  head  and  replied,  "I'm  na  so  auld  's  I 
luik  ;  my  hair  it  wentit  white  —  "  After  a  second's  pause, 
and  turning  her  eyes  out  to  sea  as  she  spoke,  she  added, 
"  A'  't  once  it  wentit  white." 

A  silence  fell  on  the  group,  and  looks  were  exchanged 
between  the  women.  I  drove  away  hastily,  feeling  as  one 
does  who  has  unawares  stepped  irreverently  on  a  grave. 
Man}-  grief-stricken  queens  have  trod  the  Scottish  shores  ; 
the  centuries  still  keep  their  memory  green,  and  their 
names  haunt  one's  thoughts  in  every  spot  they  knew. 
But  more  vivid  to  my  memory  than  all  these  returns  and 
returns  the  thought  of  the  obscure  fisherwoman  whose 
hair,  from  a  grief  of  which  the  world  never  heard,  "a'  't 
once  wentit  white." 


CHESTER  STREETS. 

IF  it  be  true,  as  some  poets  think,  that  every  spot  on 
earth  is  full  of  poetry,  then  it  is  certainly  also  true  that 
each  place  has  its  own  distinctive  measure  ;  an  indigenous 
metre,  so  to  speak,  in  which,  and  in  which  only,  its  poetry 
will  be  truly  set  or  sung. 

The  more  one  reflects  on  this,  in  connection  with  the 
spots  and  places  he  has  known  best  in  the  world,  the  truer 
it  seems.  Memories  and  impressions  group  themselves  in 
subtle  co-ordinations  to  prove  it.  There  are  surely  woods 
which  are  like  stately  sonnets,  and  others  of  which  the 
truth  would  best  be  told  in  tender  lyrics  ;  brooks  which  are 
jocund  songs,  and  mountains  which  are  Odes  to  Immortal- 
ity. Of  cities  and  towns  it  is  perhaps  even  truer  than  of 
woods  and  mountains ;  certainly,  no  less  true.  For  in- 
stance, it  would  be  a  bold  poet  who  should  attempt  to  set 
pictures  of  Rome  in  any  strain  less  solemn  than  the  epic  ; 
and  is  it  too  strong  a  thing  to  say  that  only  a  foolish  one 
would  think  of  framing  a  Venice  glimpse  or  memory  in 
anything  save  dreamy  songs,  with  dreamiest  refrains? 
Endless  vistas  of  reverie  open  to  the  imagination  once  en- 
tered on  the  road  of  this  sort  of  fancy,  —  reveries  which 
play  strange  pranks  with  both  time  and  place,  endow  the 
dreamer  with  a  sort  of  post  facto  second  sight,  and  leave 
him,  when  suddenly  roused,  as  lost  as  if  he  had  been 
asleep  for  a  century.  For  sensations  of  this  kind  Chester 
is  a  "hede  and  chefe  c.yte."  Simply  to  walk  its  streets 
is  to  step  to  time  and  tune  of  ballads ;  the  very  air  about 
one's  ears  goes  lilting  with  them  ;  the  walls  ring ;  the  gates 
echo ;  choruses  rollic  round  corners,  —  ballads,  always 
ballads,  or,  if  not  a  ballad,  a  play,  none  the  less  lively,  —  a 
play  with  pageants  and  delightful  racket. 


CHESTER  STREETS.  •  197 

Such  are  the  measure  and  metre  to-day  of  "  The  Cyteof 
Legyons,  that  is  Chestre  iu  the  marches  of  Englonde,  to- 
wards Wales,  betwegne  two  armes  of  the  see,  that  bee 
named  Dee  and  Mersee.  Thys  cyte  in  tyme  of  Britons 
was  hede  and  chefe  cyte  of  Venedocia,  that  is  North 
Wales.  Thys  cyte  in  Brytyshe  speech  bete  Carthleon, 
Chestre  in  Englyshe,  and  Cyte  of  Legyons  also.  For 
there  laye  a  wynter,  the  legyons  that  Julius  Caesar  sent  to 
wyne  Irlonde.  And  after,  Claudius  Caesar  sent  legyons 
out  of  the  cyte  for  to  wynn  the  Islands  that  bee  called 
Orcades.  Thys  cyte  hath  plenty  of  cyne  land,  of  corn,  of 
flesh,  and  specyalty  of  samon.  Thys  cyte  receyveth  grate 
marchandyse  and  sendeth  out  also.  Northumbres  de- 
stroyed this  cyte  but  Elfleda  Lady  of  Mercia  bylded  it 
again  and  made  it  mouch  more." 

This  is  what  was  written  of  Chester,  more  than  six  hun- 
dred years  ago,  by  one  Ranulph  Higden,  a  Chester  Abbey 
monk, — him  who  wrote  those  old  miracle  plays,  except 
for  which  we  very  like  had  never  had  such  a  thing  as  a 
play  at  all,  and  William  Sbakspeare  had  turned  out  no 
better  than  man}'  another  Stratford  man. 

All  good  Americans  who  reach  England  go  to  Chester. 
They  go  to  see  the  cathedral,  and  to  bu}-  old  Queen  Anne 
furniture.  The  cathedral  is  very  good  in  its  wa}*,  the  way 
of  all  cathedrals,  and  the  old  Queen  Anne  furniture  is  now 
quite  well  made  ;  but  it  is  a  marvel  that  either  cathedral  or 
shop  can  long  hold  a  person  away  from  Chester  streets. 
One  cannot  go  amiss  in  them ;  at  each  step  he  is,  as  it 
were,  button-holed  by  a  gable,  an  arch,  a  pavement,  a 
door-sill,  a  sign,  or  a  gate  with  a  story  to  tell.  A  storv, 
indeed?  A  hundred,  or  more;  and  if  anybody  doubts 
them,  or  has  by  reason  of  old  age,  or  over-occupation  with 
other  matters,  got  them  confused  in  his  mind,  all  he  has  to 
do  is  to  step  into  a  public  library,  which  is  kept  in  a  very 
private  way,  in  a  b3'-street,  by  two  aged  Cestrian  citizens 
and  a  parish  boy.  Here,  if  he  can  convince  these  vener- 
able Cestrians  of  his  respectability,  he  may  go  a-junketing 
by  himself  in  that  delicious  feast  of  an  old  book,  the 
"  Vale-Royale"  of  England,  published  in  London  in  1656, 
and  written,  I  believe,  a  half-century  or  so  earlier- 

Never  was  any  bit  of  country  more  praised  than  this 
beautiful  Chester  County,  "pleasant  and  abounding  in 


198  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

plenteousness  of  all  things  needful  and  necessary  for  man's 
use,  insomuch  that  it  merited  and  had  the  name  of  the 
Vale-Royale  of  England." 
The  old  writer  continues  :  — 

"  The  ayr  is  very  wholesome,  insomuch  that  the  people  of  the 
Country  are  seldome  infected  with  Diseases  or  Sicknesses ;  neither 
do  they  use  the  help  of  the  Physicians  nothing  so  much  as  in 
other  countries.  For  when  any  of  them  are  sick  they  make 
him  a  Posset  and  tye  a  kerchief  on  his  head,  and  if  that  will  not 
amend  him,  then  God  be  merciful  to  him!  " 

And  of  the  river  Dee,  — 

"  To  which  water  no  man  can  express  how  much  this  ancient 
city  hath  been  beholden ;  nay,  I  suppose  if  I  should  call  it  the 
Mother,  the  Nurse,  the  Maintainer,  the  Advancer  and  Preserver 
thereof,  I  should  riot  greatly  erre." 

And  again,  of  the  shifting  "  sands  o'  Dee,"  this  ancient 
and  devout  man,  taking  quite  another  view  than  that  of 
the  thoughtless  or  pensive  lyrists,  later,  says,  — 

"  The  changing  and  shifting  of  the  water  gave  some  occasion 
to  the  Britons  in  that  Infancy  of  the  Christian  Religion  to  at- 
tribute some  divine  honor  and  estimation  to  the  said  water: 
though  I  cannot  believe  that  to  beany  cause  of  the  name  of  it." 

His  pious  deduction  from  the  exceeding  beauty  of  the 
situation  of  the  city  is  that  it  is  "  worthy,  according  to  the 
E}'e,  to  be  called  a  city  guarded  with  Watch  of  Holy  and 
Religious  men,  and  through  the  Mercy  of  our  Saviour  al- 
ways fenced  and  fortified  with  the  merciful  assistance  of 
the  Almighty."  To  keep  it  thus  guarded,  the  monks  of 
Vale-Royale  did  their  best.  Witness  the  terms  in  which 
their  grant  was  couched  :  — 

"  All  the  mannours,  churches,  lands  and  tenements  aforesaid, 
in  free  pure  and  perpetual  alms  forever;  with  Homages.  Rents, 
Demesnes,  Villenages,  Services  of  Free  Holders  and  Bond,  with 
Villains  and  their  Families,  Advowsons,  Wards,  Reliefs,  Es- 
cheates,  Woods,  Plains,  Meadows,  Pastures,  Waves,  Pathes, 
Heaths,  Turfs,  Forests,  Waters,  Ponds,  Parks,  Fishing,  Mills 
in  Granges,  Cottages  within  Borough  and  without,  and  in 
all  other  places  with  all  Easments,  Liberties,  Franchises  and 
Free  Customs  any  way  belonging  to  the  aforesaid  Mannours, 
Churches,  lands  and  tenements." 


CHESTER  STREETS.  199 

Plainly,  if  the  devil  or  an}'  of  his  followers  were  caught 
in  the  Yale-Royale,  they  could  be  legally  ejected  as  tres- 
passers. 

He  was  not,  however,  without  an  eye  to  worldly  state, 
this  devout  writer,  for  he  speaks  with  evident  pride  of  the 
fine  show  kept  up  by  the  mayor  of  Chester :  — 

"  The  Estate  that  the  Mayor  of  Chester  keepeth  is  great.  For 
he  hath  both  Sword  Bearer  and  Mace  Bearer  Sergeants,  with 
their  silver  maces,  in  as  good  and  decent  order  as  in  any  other 
city  in  England.  His  housekeeping  accordingly ;  but  not  so 
chargeable  as  in  all  other  cities,  because  all  thing  are  better 
cheap  there.  .  .  .  He  remaineth,  most  part  of  the  day  at  a 
place  called  the  Pendice  which  is  a  brave  place  builded  i'or  the 
purpose  at  the  high  Crosse  under  St.  Peters  Church,  and  in  the 
middest  of  the  city,  of  such  a  sort  that  a  man  may  stand  therein 
and  see  into  the  markets  or  four  principal  streets  of  the  city." 

Nevertheless,  there  was  once  a  mayor  of  Chester  who 
did  not  see  all  he  ought  to  have  seen  in  the  principal 
streets  of  the  city  ;  for  his  own  daughter,  out  playing  ball 
"  with  other  maids,  in  the  summer  time,  in  Pepur  Street," 
stole  away  from  her  companions,  and  ran  off  with  her 
sweetheart,  through  one  of  the  city  gates,  at  the  foot  of 
that  street,  which  gate  the  enraged  mayor  ordered  closed 
up  forever,  as  if  that  would  do  an}'  good  ;  and  some  sharp- 
tongued  and  sensible  Cestrian  immediately  phrased  the 
illogical  action  in  a  proverb:  "-When  the  daughter  is 
stolen,  shut  the  Pepur  gate."  This  saying  is  to  be  heard 
in  Chester  to  this  day,  and  is  no  doubt  lineal  ancestor  of 
our  own  broader  apothegm,  "  When  the  mare 's  stolen, 
lock  the  stable." 

There  are  many  lively  stories  about  mayors  of  Chester. 
There  was  a  mayor  in  1617  who  made  a  very  learned 
speech  to  King  James,  when  he  I'ode  in  through  East  Gate; 
with  all  the  train  soldiers  of  the  city  standing  in  order, 
"  each  company  with  their  ensigns  in  seemly  sort,"  the  ar- 
ray stretching  up  both  sides  of  East  Gate  Street.  This 
mayor's  name  was  Charles  Fitton.  He  delivered  his  speech 
to  the  king;  presented  to  him  a  "standing  cup  with  a 
cover  double  gilt,  and  therein  a  hundred  jacobins  of  gold  ;  " 
likewise  delivered  to  him  the  city's  sword,  and  afterward 
bore  it  before  him,  in  the  procession.  But  when  King 


200  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

James  proposed,  in  return  for  all  these  civilities,  to  make 
a  knight  of  him,  Charles  Fitton  sturdily  refused  ;  which 
was  a  thing  so  strange  for  its  day  and  generation  that  one 
is  instantly  possessed  by  a  fire  of  curiosity  to  know  what 
Charles  Fitton's  reasons  could  have  been  for  such  contempt 
of  a  knight's  title.  No  doubt  there  is  a  story  hanging 
thereby,  —  something  to  do  with  a  lady-love,  not  unlikely  ; 
and  a  fine  ballad  it  would  make,  if  one  but  knew  it.  The 
records,  however,  state  only  the  bare  fact. 

Then  there  was,  a  hundred  years  later  than  this,  a  man 
who  got  to  be  ma3'or  of  Chester  by  a  veiy  strange  chance. 
He  was  a  ribbon-weaver,  in  a  small  way,  kept  a  shop  in 
Shoemaker's  Row,  and  lived  in  a  little  house  backing  on 
the  Falcon  Inn.  All  of  a  sudden  he  blossomed  out  into  a 
rich  silk-mercer  ;  bought  a  fine  estate  just  outside  the  city, 
built  a  grand  house,  and  generally  assumed  the  airs  and 
manners  of  a  dignitary.  As  is  the  way  of  the  world  now, 
so  then  :  people  soon  took  him  at  his  surface  showing,  for- 
got all  about  the  mystery  of  his  sudden  wealth,  and  pres- 
ently made  him  mayor  of  Chester.  Afterward  it  came 
out,  though  never  in  such  fashion  that  anything  was  done 
about  it,  how  the  mayor  got  his  money.  Just  before  the 
mysterious  rise  in  his  fortunes,  a  great  London  banking- 
house  had  been  robbed  of  a  large  sum  of  money  by  one  of 
its  clerks,  who  ran  away,  came  to  Chester,  and  went  into 
hiding  at  the  Falcon  Inn.  He  was  tracked  and  overtaken 
late  one  night.  Hearing  his  pursuers  on  the  stairs,  he 
sprang  from  his  bed  and  threw  the  treasure  bags  out  of 
the  window,  plump  into  the  ribbon-weaver's  back-yard  ; 
where  the  disappointed  constables  naturally  never  thought 
of  looking,  and  went  back  to  London  much  chagrined, 
carrying  only  the  man,  and  no  money.  None  of  the  money 
having  been  found  on  the  robber,  he  escaped  conviction, 
but  subsequently,  for  another  offence,  was  tried,  convicted, 
and  executed.  I  take  it  for  granted  that  it  must  have 
been  he  who  told  in  his  last  hours  what  he  did  with  the 
money  bags  :  for  certainly  no  one  else  knew,  —  that  is,  no 
one  else  except  Mr.  .Samuel  Jarvis,  the  ribbon-weaver,  who, 
much  astonished,  had  picked  them  up  before  daylight,  the 
morning  after  they  had  been  thrown  into  his  back-yard. 
It  is  certain  that  he  kept  his  mouth  shut,  and  proceeded  to 
turn  the  money  to  the  best  possible  account  in  the  shortest 


CHESTER  STREETS.  201 

possible  time.  But  an  evil  fate  seemed  to  attach  to  the 
dishonestly  gotten  riches  ;  Jarvis  dying  without  issue,  his 
estate  all  went  to  a  man  named  Doe,  "  a  gardener,  at 
Greg's  Pit,"  whose  sons  and  grandsons  spent  the  last 
penny  of  it  in  riotous  living.  So  there  is  now  "  nothing 
to  show  for  "  that  monej',  for  the  stealing  of  which  one 
man  was  tried  for  his  life,  and  another  man  made  mayor 
of  Chester ;  which  would  all  come  in  capitally  in  a  ballad, 
if  a  ballad-monger  chose. 

Of  the  famous  Chester  Rows,  nobody  has  ever  yet  con- 
trived to  give  a  description  intelligible  to  one  who  had  not 
seen  them.  The  more  familiarly  they  are  known,  the  more 
fantastic  and  bewildering  the}'  seem,  and  the  less  one  is 
sure  how  to  speak  of  them.  Whether  it  is  that  the  side- 
walk goes  upstairs,  or  the  front  second-story  bedroom 
comes  down  into  the  street ;  whether  the  street  itself  be  in 
the  basement  or  the  cellar,  or  the  sidewalk  be  on  the  roofs 
of  the  houses  ;  —  where  any  one  of  the  mall  begins  or  leaves 
off,  it  would  be  a  courageous  narrator  that  tried  to  ex- 
plain. They  appear  to  have  been  as  much  of  a  puzzle  two 
hundred  years  ago  as  to-day ;  for  the  devout  old  chronicler 
of  the  Vale-Royale,  essaying  to  describe  them,  wrote  the 
following  paragraph,  which,  delicious  as  it  is  to  those  who 
know  Chester,  I  think  must  be  a  stumbling-block  and  fool- 
ishness to  those  who  do  not.  He  says  there  is  "  a  singu- 
lar property  of  praise  to  this  city,  whereof  I  know  not  the 
like  of  an}*  other :  there  be  towards  the  street  fair  rooms, 
both  for  shops  and  dwelling-houses,  to  which  there  is 
rather  a  descent  than  an  equal  height  with  the  floor  or 
pavement  of  the  street.  Yet  the  principal  dwelling-houses 
and  shops  for  the  chiefest  Trades  are  mounted  a  story 
higher,  and  before  the  Doors  and  Entries  a  continued 
Row,  on  either  side  the  street,  for  people  to  pass  to  and  fro 
all  along  the  said  houses,  out  of  all  annoyance  of  Rain,  or 
other  foul  weather,  with  stairs  fairly  built,  and  neatl}" 
maintained  to  step  down  out  of  those  Rowes  into  the 
open  streets  :  almost  at  every  second  house  :  and  the  said 
Rowes  built  over  the  head  with  such  of  the  Chambers  and 
Rooms  for  the  most  part  as  are  the  best  rooms  in  every 
one  of  the  said  houses. 

"  It  approves  itself  to  be  of  most  excellent  use,  both  for 
dry  and  easv  passage  of  all  sorts  of  people  upon  their  neces- 


202  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

sary  occasions,  as  also  for  the  sending  away,  of  all  or  the 
most  Passengers  on  foot  from  the  passage  of  the  street, 
amongst  laden  and  empty  Carts,  loaden  and  travelling 
Horses,  lumbering  Coaches,  Beer  Carts,  Beasts,  Sheep, 
Swine,  and  all  annoyances,  which  what  a  confused  trouble 
it  makes  in  other  cities,  especially  where  great  stirring  is, 
there 's  none  that  can  be  ignorant." 

He  also  suggests  another  advantage  of  this  arrange- 
ment, which  seems  by  no  means  unlikely  to  have  been 
part  of  its  original  reason  for  being ;  namely,  that  "  when 
the  enemy  entered  they  might  avoid  the  danger  of  the 
Horsemen,  and  might  annoy  the  Enemies  as  they  passed 
through  the  Streets."  Probably  in  this  writer's  day  the 
marvel  of  the  construction  of  the  Rows  was  even  greater 
than  it  is  now  ;  in  many  instances  the  first  story  was  exca- 
vated out  of  solid  rock,  so  3-011  began  by  going  downstairs 
at  the  outset.  These  first  stories  of  the  ancient  Cestrians 
are  beneath  the  cellars  of  the  Rows  to-day  ;  and  ever}-  now 
and  then,  in  deepening  a  vault  or  cellar-way,  workmen 
come  on  old  Roman  altars,  built  there  by  the  "  Leg3-ons  " 
of  Julius,  or  Claudius  Caesar,  dedicated  to  "Nymphs  and 
Fountains,"  or  other  genii  of  the  day  ;  baths,  too,  with 
their  pillars  and  perforated  tiles  still  in  place,  as  the}-  were 
in  the  days  when  cleanly  and  luxurious  Roman  soldiers 
took  Turkish  baths  there,  after  hot  victories.  Knowing 
about  these  lower  strata  adds  a  weird  charm  to  the  fasci- 
nation of  strolling  along  in  the  balconies  above,  looking  in, 
now  at  a  jeweller's  window,  now  at  a  smart  haberdashery 
shop,  now  at  some  neat  housekeeper's  bedroom  window, 
now  into  a  mysterious  chink-like  passage-way  winding  off 
into  the  heart  of  the  building;  and  then,  perhaps,  presto! 
descending  a  staircase  a  few  feet,  to  another  tier  of  simi- 
lar shop-windows,  domiciles,  garret  alleys,  and  dormer- 
window  bazars  ;  and  the  next  thing,  plump  down  again, 
ten  feet  or  so  more,  into  the  very  street  itself.  Indeed  are 
they,  as  the  "  Vale-Royale  "  says,  "  a  singular  property  of 
praise  to  this  city,  whereof  I  know  not  the  like  of  any 
other." 

One  manifest  use  and  enjoyment  of  this  medley  of  in 
and  out,  up  and  down,  above  and  below,  balconies,  base- 
ments, attics,  dormer  windows,  gables,  and  casements,  the 
old  chronicler  failed  to  mention,  but  there  can  never  have 


CHESTER  STREETS.  203 

been  a  day  or  a  generation  which  has  not  discovered  it, 
and  that  is  the  convenient  overlooking  of  all  that  goes  on 
in  the  street  below.  What  rare  and  comfortable  nooks  for 
the  spying  on  processions,  and  all  manner  of  shows  and 
spectacles !  To  sit  snug  in  one's  best  chamber,  ten  feet 
above  the  street,  ten  feet  out  into  it,  with  windows  looking 
up  and  down  the  highway,  —  what  vantage  it  must  have 
been  in  the  days  when  the  Miracle  Plays  went  wheeling 
along  from  street  to  street,  played  on  double  scaffolded 
carts ;  the  pla}'ers  attiring  themselves  on  the  lower  scaf- 
fold, while  the  play  was  progressing  on  the  upper !  They 
began  to  do  this  in  Chester  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1268. 
There  were  generally  in  use  at  one  time  twenty-four  of 
the  wheeled  stages ;  as  soon  as  one  play  was  over,  it8 
stage  was  wheeled  along  to  the  next  street,  and  another 
took  its  place.  The  plays  were  called  Mysteries,  and  were 
devised  for  the  giving  of  instruction  in  the  Old  and  New 
Testament,  which  had  been  so  long  sealed  books  to  the 
people.  Luther  gave  them  his  sanction,  saying,  "  Such 
spectacles  often  do  more  good  and  produce  more  impres- 
sion than  sermons." 

The  old  chronicles  are  full  of  quaint  and  interesting 
entries  in  regard  U>  these  plays.  The  different  trades  and 
guilds  of  the  cit}r  represented  different  acts  in  the  holy 
dramas :  — 

The  Barkers  and  Tanners,  The  Fall  of  Lucifer. 
Drapers  and  Hosiers,  The  Creation  of  the  World. 
Drawers   of  Dee   and   Water  Leaders,    Noe  and  his 
Shippe. 

Barbers,  Wax  Chandlers,  and  Leeches,  Abraham  and 
Isaac. 

Cappers,  Wire  Drawers,  and  Pinners,  Balak  and  Sa- 
laam with  Moses. 

Wrights,  Slaters,  Tylers,  Daubers,  and -Thatchers,  The 
Nativity. 

In  1574  these  plays  were  played  for  the  last  time. 
There  had  been  several  attempts  before  to  suppress  them. 
One  Chester  mayor,  Henr}-  Hardware  by  name,  being  a 
"  godly  and  zealous  man,  caused  the  gyauntes  in  the  mid- 
somiM-  show  to  be  broken  up,  not  to  go ;  and  the  devil  in 
his  feathers  he  put  awaye,  and  the  caps,  and  the  canes, 
and  dragon  and  the  naked  boys." 


204  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

But  it  was  reserved  for  another  mayor,  Sir  John  Savage, 
Knight,  to  have  the  honor  of  finally  putting  an  end  to  the 
pageants.  "  Sir  John  Savage,  knight,  being  Mayor  of 
,' Chester,  which  was  the  laste  time  they  were  played,  and 
we  praise  God,  and  praye  that  we  see  not  the  like  profana- 
tion of  holy  Scriptures,  but  O,  the  mercie  of  God  for  the 
time  of  our  ignorance ! "  says  an  old  history,  written  in 
1595. 

At  intervals  between  these  pious  suppressions,  carnal 
and  pleasure-loving  persons  made  great  efforts  to  restore 
the  plays ;  and  there  are  some  very  curious  accounts  of 
expenditures  made  in  Chester,  under  mayors  less  godty 
than  Hardware  and  Savage,  for  the  rehabilitation  of  some 
of  the  old  properties  of  the  sacred  pageants  :  — 

"  For  finding  all  the  materials  with  the  workmanship  of  the 
four  great  giants,  all  to  be  made  new,  as  neere  as  may  be,  ]yke 
as  they  were  before,  at  five  pounds  a  giant,  the  least  that  can 
be,  and  four  men  to  carry  them  at  two  shillings  and  sixpence 
each." 

These  redoubtable  giants,  which  could  not  be  made 
at  less  than  five  pounds  apiece,  were  constructed  out  of 
"hoops,  deal  boards,  nails,  pasteboard,  scale-board, 
paper  of  various  sorts,  buckram  size  cloth,  old  sheets  for 
their  bodies,  sleeves  and  shirts,  tinsille,  tinfoil,  gold  and 
silver  leaf,  colors  of  different  kinds,  and  glue  in  abun- 
dance." Last,  not  least,  came  the  item,  "For  arsknick 
to  put  into  the  paste  to  save  the  giants  from  being  eaten 
by  the  rats,  one  shilling  and  fourpence." 

It  is  at  first  laughable  to  think  of  a  set  of  cit}-  fathers 
summing  up  such  accounts  as  these  for  a  paper  baby  show, 
but  upon  second  thought  the  question  occurs  whether  city 
funds  are  am-  better  administered  in  these  days.  The 
paper  giants,  feathered  devils,  and  dragons  were  cheaper 
than  champagne  suppers  and  stationery  now-a-days  in 
"  hede  and  chefe"  cities. 

"\Vhen  the  Mystery  Plays  were  finally  forbidden,  it  seemed 
dull  times  for  a  while  in  Chester ;  but  at  last  the  people 
contrived  an  ingenious  resuscitation  of  the  old  amusements 
under  new  names,  and  with  new  themes,  to  which  nobody^ 
could  object.  They  dramatized  old  stories,  legends,  his- 
tories of  kings,  and  the  like.  The  story  of  ^Eneas  and 


CHESTER  STREETS.  205 

Queen  Dido  was  one  of  the  first  played.  No  doubt  all  the 
"gyauntes"  and  hobble-de-horses  which  had  not  been 
eaten  up  by  rats  and  moths  came  in  as  effectively  in  the 
second  dispensation  as  in  the  first.  The  only  one  of  the 
later  plays  of  which  an  account  has  been  preserved  was. 
pla\~ed  in  1608,  in  honor  of  the  oldest  son  of  James  I.,  by 
the  sheriff  of  Chester,  who  himself  wrote  a  flaming  account 
of  it.  He  says  :  — 

"  Zeal  produced  it,  love  devized  it,  boyes.  performed  it,  men 
beheld  it,  and  none  but  fools  dispraised  it.  ...  The  chiefest 
part  of  this  people-pleasing  spectacle  consisted  in  three  Bees, 
that  is,  Boyes,  Beastes,  and  Bels." 

Allegory,  mytholog}r,  music,  fireworks,  and  ground  and 
loft}-  tumbling  were  jumbled  together  in  a  fine  waj-,  in  the 
sheriff's  show.  Envy  was  on  horseback  with  a  wreath  of 
snakes  around  her  head ;  Plenty,  Peace,  Fame,  and  Joy 
were  personated ;  Mercury  came  down  from  heaven  with 
wings,  in  a  cloud ;  a  "  wheele  of  fire  burning  very  cun- 
ningly, with  other  fireworks,  mounted  the  Crosse  by  the 
assistance  of  ropes,  in  the  midst  of  heavenly  melody ; " 
and,  to  top  off  with,  a  grotesque  figure  climbed  up  to  the  top 
of  the  "Crosse,"  and  stood  on  his  head,  with  his  feet  in  the 
air,  "  very  dangerously  and  wonderfully  to  the  view  of  the 
beholders,  and  casting  fireworks  very  delightfull."  Truly,* 
the  sheriff's  language  seems  hardly  too  strong,  when  he 
says  that  none  but  fools  dispraised  his  spectacle. 

These  secular  shows  never  attained  the  popularity  of  the 
old  Mystery  Plays.  That  mysterious  halo  of  attraction 
which  always  invests  the  forbidden  undoubtedly  heightened 
the  reputed  charm  of  the  never-more-to-be-seen  sacred 
pageants,  and  led  people  to  continually  depreciate  the 
value  of  all  entertainments  offered  as  substitutes  for  them. 
Probably  in  the  midst  of  the  heavenly  melodies  and  "  fire- 
works very  delightfull,"  at  the  sheriff's  grand  show,  old 
men  went  about  shaking  their  heads  regretfully,  and  say- 
ing, "  Ah,  but  j'ou  should  have  seen  the  gvaunts  we  used 
to  have  forty  years  ago,  and  the  way  they  played  the  Fall 
of  Lucifer  in  1574;  there's  never  been  anything  like  it 
since  ;  "  and  immediately  all  the  young  people  who  had 
never  seen  a  Miracle  Play  began  to  be  full  of  dissatisfied 
wonder  as  to  what  they  were  like. 


206  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

But  what  the  shows  and  pageants  lacked  in  the  early 
days  of  the  seventeenth  century,  grand  processions  wont  a 
long  way  towards  making  up.  It  is  evident  that  Chester  peo- 
ple never  missed  an  occasion  for  turning  out  in  fine  array  ; 
and  there  being  always  somebody  who  took  the  trouble  to 
write  a  full  account  of  the  parade,  we  of  to-day  know  al- 
most as  much  about  it  as  if  we  had  been  on  the  spot.  The 
old  chronicles  in  the  Chester  public  librarj-  are  running  over 
with  quaint  and  gay  stories  of  such  doings  as  the  following : 

"  Came  to  Chester,  being  Saturday,  the  Duchess  of  Tremoyle, 
from  France,  mother-in-law  to  the  Lord  Strange:  and  all  the 
Gentry  of  Cheshier,  Flintshier,  and  Denbighshier  went  to  meet 
her  at  Hoole's  Heath,  with  the  Earl  of  Derby ;  being  at  least  six 
hundred  horse.  All  the  Gentle  Men  of  the  artelery  yard  lately 
erected  in  Chester,  met  her  in  Cow  Lane,  in  very  stately  man- 
ner, all  with  greate  white  and  blew  fethers,  and  went  before 
her  chariot,  in  march,  to  the  Bishop's  Pallas,  and  making  a 
yard,  let  her  thro  the  middest,  and  then  gave  her  three  volleys 
of  shot,  and  so  returned  to  their  yard.  ...  So  many  knights, 
esquires,  and  Gentle  Men  never  were  in  Chester,  no,  not  to  meet 
King  James  when  he  went  to  Chester." 

This  Cow  Lane  is  now  called  Frodsham  Street ;  and  on 
one  of  its  corners  is  the  building  in  which  William  Penn, 
in  his  day,  preached  more  than  once,  setting  forth  doc- 
trines which  the  Duchess  of  Trembyle  would  have  much 
disrelished  in  her  day,  as  would  also  the  "  artelery  Gentle 
Men  "  with  their  "  greate  white  and  blew  fethers."  King 
James  himself  is  said  to  have  once  dropped  in  at  this 
Quaker  meeting-house  when  Penn  was  preaching,  and  to 
have  sat,  attentive,  through  the  entire  discourse. 

And  so  we  come  down  through  the  centuries,  from  the 
pasteboard  "gyaunt"  and  glued  dragon,  winged  Mercury 
with  lire-wheel,  Duchess  of  Tremoyle  with  her  plumed 
horsemen,  to  the  grim  but  gentle  Quaker,  holding  feathers 
pernicious,  plays  deadly,  and  permitting  to  the  people 
nothing  but  plain  yea  and  nay.  Of  all  this,  and  worlds 
more  like  it,  and  gayer  and  wilder,  —  sadder,  too,  —  is  the 
Chester  air  so  brimful  that,  as  I  said  in  the  beginning,  it 
seems  perpetually  to  go  lilting  about  one's  ears. 

Leaving  the  library,  with  its  quaint  and  fascinating  old 
records,  and  turning  aside  at  intervals  from  the  more 
ancient  landmarks  of  the  streets  to  observe  the  wavs  and 


CHESTER  STREETS.  207 

conditions  of  the  Cestrians  now,  the  traveller  is  no  less 
repaid.  Ever}*  rod  of  the  sidewalk  is  a  stud}-  for  its  present 
as  well  as  for  its  past.  The  venders  are  a  guild  by  them- 
selves, as  much  to-day  as  the}-  were  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. They  build  up  their  stuffs,  their  old  chairs,  chests, 
brooms,  crockery  and  tinware,  in  stacks  of  confusion,  in 
shelf-like  balconies,  on  beams  hanging  overhead  and  in 
corners  and  nooks  underfoot,  all  along  the  most  ancient 
of  the  Rows.  It  is  a  piece  of  good  luck  to  walk  past  half 
a  dozen  doors  there  without  jostling  something  on  the 
right  or  left,  and  bringing  down  a  clattering  pile  on  one's 
heels.  From  shadowy  recesses,  men  and  women  eager 
for  trade  dart  out,  eying  the  stranger  sharply.  They  are 
connoisseurs  in  customers,  if  in  nothing  else,  the  Cestrian 
dealers  of  to-day.  They  know  at  a  glance  who  will  give 
ten  shillings  and  sixpence  for  a  cream  jug  without  any 
nose,  and  with  a  big  crack  in  one  side,  on  the  bare  chance 
of  its  being  old  Welsh.  There  is  much  excuse  for  their 
spreading  out  their  goods  over  the  highway,  as  they  do, 
for  the  shops  themselves  are  closets,  —  six  bj*  eight,  eight 
b}*  ten ;  ten  by  twelve  is  a  spacious  mart,  in  comparison 
with  the  average.  Deprived  of  the  outside  nooks  between 
the  pillars  of  the  arcade,  the  dealers  would  be  sorely  put 
to  it  for  room.  It  is  becoming,  however,  a  disputed  ques- 
tion whether  the  renting  of  these  shops  includes  any  right 
to  the  covered  ways  in  front  of  them ;  and  there  is  great 
anxiety  among  the  inhabitants  of  the  more  dilapidated 
portions  of  the  Rows  in  consequence. 

"  There  's  a  deespute  with  the  corporation,  mem,  as  to 
whether  we  hown  the  stalls  or  not,"  said  an  energetic 
furniture-wife  (if  fish-wife,  why  not  furniture- wife  ?)  to  me 
one  day,  as  I  was  laughingly  steering  a  cautious  passage 
among  her  shaky  pyramids  of  fourth  or  twentieth  hand 
i furniture.  "It's  lasted  a  while  now,  an'  they've  not 
1  forced  us  to  give  'em  hup  as  yet ;  but  I  'm  afeard  they 
may  bring  it  about,"  she  added,  with  the  dogged  humility 
of  her  class.  "  They  Ve  everything  their  own  way, — the 
corporation." 

It  is  worth  while  to  take  a  turn  down  some  of  the  crevice- 
like  alleys  in  these  Rows,  and  see  where  the  people  live ; 
see  also  where  the  nobility  gets  part  of  its  wherewithal  to 
eat,  drink,  and  be  clothed. 


208  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

Often  there  is  to  be  seen  at  the  far  end  of  these  crevices 
a  point  of  sunlight ;  like  the  gleaming  point  of  light  seen 
ahead,  in  going  through  a  ray  less  tunnel.  This  betokens 
a  tiny  court-yard  in  the  rear.  These  court-yards  are  al- 
ways well  worth  seeing.  They  are  paved,  sometimes  with 
tiles  evidently  hundreds  of  years  old.  The  different  prop- 
erties of  the  dozens  of  families  living  in  tenements  opening 
on  the  court  are  arranged  around  its  sides,  apparently 
each  family  keeping  scrupulously  to  its  own  little  hand's- 
breadth  of  room  ;  frequently  a  tiny  flower-bed,  or  a  single 
plant  in  a  pot,  gives  a  gleam  of  cheer  to  the  place.  In 
such  a  court-yard  as  this,  I  found,  one  morning,  a  yellow- 
haired,  blue-eyed  little  maid,  scrubbing  away  for  dear  life, 
with  a  broom  and  soap-suds,  on  the  old  tiles.  She  was 
not  over  nine  years  old  ;  her  bare  legs  and  feet  were  pink 
and  chubby,  and  she  had  a  smile  like  a  sunbeam. 

"  I  saw  the  sun  shining  in  here  so  brightly  that  I 
walked  up  the  alley  to  see  how  it  got  in,"  I  said  to  her. 

"  Yes,  mem,"  she  said,  with  a  courtes}\  "  It  do  shine 
in  here  beautiful."  And  she  looked  up  at  the  sk}T,  smiling. 

"  Have  you  lived  here  long?  "  I  asked. 

"  About  nine  months,  mem.  I  'm  only  in  service,  mem," 
she  continued  with  a  deprecating  courtesj',  modestly  anx- 
ious to  disclaim  the  honor  of  having  any  proprietary  right 
in  the  place. 

"We've  five  rooms,  mem,"  she  went  on.  "It's  a 
very  nice  lodging,  if  you  'd  like  to  see  it."  And  she  threw 
open  a  door  into  an  infinitesimal  parlor,  out  of  which 
opened  a  still  smaller  dining-room,  lighted  onl}'  by  a  win- 
dow in  the  parlor  door.  There  were  two  bedrooms  above, 
reached  by  a  nearly  upright  stairway,  not  over  two  feet 
wide.  The  fifth  room  was  a  "  beautiful  washroom,"  which 
the  little  maiden  exhibited  with  even  more  pride  than  she 
had  shown  the  parlor.  "It's  three  families  has  it  to- 
gether, mem,"  she  explained.  "  It 's  a  great  thing  to  get 
a  washroom.  And  we  've  a  coal-hole,  too,  mem,"  she  said 
eagerly  ;  "  you  passed  it,  coming  up."  And  she  stepped  a 
few  paces  down  the  alley,  and  threw  open  a  door  into  a  ray- 
less  place  possibly  five  by  seven  feet  in  size.  "  It  used  to 
be  a  bedroom,  mem,  to  the  opposite  house ;  but  it's  empty- 
now,  so  we  gets  it  for  coal."  I  could  not  take  my  eyes 
from  the  child's  face,  as  she  prattled  and  pattered  along. 


CHESTER  STREETS.  209 

She  looked  like  an  angel.  Her  face  shone  with  loyalty, 
pride,  and  happiness.  I  envied  the  poverty-stricken  dwell- 
ers in  this  court  their  barefooted  handmaiden,  and  would 
have  taken  her  then  and  there,  if  I  could,  into  nay  own 
service  for  her  lifetime.  As  we  stood  talking,  another  door 
opened,  and  a  grizzled  old  head  popped  out. 

"Good-morning,  mem,"  said  the  child  cheerily,  making 
the  same  respectful  courtesy  she  had  made  to  me.  "  I  'm 
just  showin'  the  lady  what  nice  lodgin's  we  've  'ere  in  the 
court." 

"  Humph,"  said  the  old  woman  gruffly,  as  she  tottered 
out,  leaving  her  door  wide  open;  "they're  nothin'  to 
boast  of." 

Her  own  lodging  certainly  was  not.  It  was  literally 
little  more  than  a  chamber  in  the  wall :  it  had  no  window, 
except  one  small  square  pane  above  the  door.  You  could 
hardly  stand  upright  in  it,  and  not  much  more  than  turn 
around.  The  walls  were  hung  full :  household  utensils, 
clothes,  even  her  two  or  three  books,  were  hung  up  by 
strings  ;  there  being  only  room  for  one  tiny  table,  besides 
the  stove.  In  one  corner  stood  a  step-ladder,  which  led 
up  through  a  hole  in  the  ceiling  to  the  cranny  overhead  in 
which  she  slept.  This  was  all  the  old  woman  had.  She 
lived  here  alone,  and  she  paid  to  the  Duke  of  Westminster 
two  shillings  and  sixpence  a  week  for  the  rent  of  the  place. 
"It's  dear  at  the  rent,"  she  said  ;  "  but  it 's  a  respectable 
place,  an'  I  think  a  deal  o'  that."  And  she  sighed. 

The  name  of  the  Duke  of  Westminster  and  the  value  of 
that  two  and  sixpence  to  his  grace  meant  more  to  me  that 
morning  than  it  would  have  done  twenty-four  hours  earlier ; 
for  on  the  previous  afternoon  we  had  visited  his  palace, 
the  famous  Eaton  Hall.  We  bad  walked  there  for  weary 
hours  over  marble  floors,  under  frescoed  domes,  through 
long  lines  of  statues,  of  pictures,  of  stained-glass  windows, 
hangings,  carvings,  and  rare  relics  and  trophies  innumera- 
ble. We  had  seen  the  duchess's  window  balcony,  one 
waving  mass  of  yellow  musk.  "  Her  ladyship  is  very  fond 
of  musk.  It  is  always  to  be  kept  flowering  at  her  window," 
we  were  told. 

We  had  walked  also  through  a  glass  corridor  three 
hundred  and  seventy-five  yards  long,  draped  with  white 
clematis  and  heliotrope  on  one  side,  and  on  the  other 
14 


210  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

banked  high  with  geraniums,  carnations,  and  all  manner 
of  flowers.  Opening  at  intervals  in  these  banks  of  flowers 
were  doors  into  other  conservatories  :  one  was  filled  chiefly 
with  rare  orchids,  like  an  enchanted  aviary  of  humming- 
birds, arrested  on  the  wing ;  gold  and  white,  purple  and 
white,  brown  and  gold,  green,  snowy  white,  orange  ;  some 
of  them  as  large  as  a  fleur-de-lis.  Another  house  was 
filled  with  ferns  and  palms,  green,  luxuriant,  like  a  bit  of 
tropical  forest  brought  across  seas  for  his  grace's  pleasure. 
The  most  superb  sight  of  all  was  the  lotus  house.  Cleo- 
patra herself  might  have  flushed  with  pleasure  at  beholding 
it.  A  deep  tank,  sixty  feet  long,  and  twentj-  wide,  filled 
with  white  and  blue  and  pink  blossoms,  floating,  swaying, 
lolling  on  the  dark  water  ;  while,  seemingly  to  uphold  the 
glass  roof  canopying  this  lotus-decked  sea,  rose  slender 
columns,  wreathed  with  thunbergia  vines  in  full  bloom,  yel- 
low, orange,  and  white  ;  the  glass  walls  of  the  building 
were  set  thick  and  high  with  maiden-hair  and  other  rare 
ferns,  interspersed  at  irregular  intervals  with  solid  masses 
of  purple  or  white  flowers.  The  spell  of  the  place,  of  its 
warm,  languid  air,  was  be}rond  words  :  it  was  bewildering. 

All  this  being  vivid  in  my  mind,  I  started  at  hearing  his 
grace's  name  from  the  old  woman's  lips. 

"  So  these  houses  belong  to  the  Duke  of  Westminster, 
do  they  ?  "  I  replied. 

"Yes,  'ee's  the  'ole  o'  't,"  she  answered  ;  "  an'  a  power 
o'  money  it  brings  'im  in,  considerin'  its  size.  'Ee's  big 
rents  in  this  town.  Mebbe  ye've  bin  out  t'  'is  'all?  It's 
a  gran'  sight,  I  'm  told.  I  've  never  seen  it." 

I  was  minded  then  to  tell  about  the  duke's  flowers.  It 
would  have  been  only  a  bit  of  a  fairy  story  to  the  little 
maid,  a  bright  spot  in  her  still  bright  horizons  ;  but  I  fore- 
bore,  for  the  sake  of  the  old  woman's  soul,  alread}"  enough 
wrung  and  embittered  by  the  long  strain  of  her  hard  lot, 
and  its  contrast  with  that  of  her  betters,  without  having 
that  contrast  enforced  by  a  vivid  picture  of  the  duke's  hot- 
houses. My  own  memory  of  them  was  darkened  forever, 
—  unreasonably  so,  perhaps  ;  but  the  antithesis  came  too 
suddenly  and  soon  for  me  ever  to  separate  the  pictures. 

The  archaeologist  in  Chester  will  frequently  be  lured 
from  its  streets  to  its  still  more  famous  walls.  This  side 
Rome  there  is  no  such  piece  of  Roman  masonry  work,  to 


CHESTER  STREETS.  211 

be  seen.  Here,  indeed,  is  the  air  full  of  ballad  measures, 
to  which  one  must  step,  if  he  go-  his  way  thinking  at  all. 
The  four  great  gates,  north,  south,  east,  and  west,  — 
three  kept  by  earls,  and  only  one  owned  by  the  citizens ; 
the  lesser  posterns,  with  commoner  names,  born  of  their 
different  sorts  of  traffic,  or  the  fords  to  which  they  led  ; 
the  towers  and  turrets,  fought  over,  lost  and  won,  and  won 
and  lost,  trod  by  centuries  of  brave  fighters  whose  names 
live  forever ;  bridgeways  and  arches  in  their  own  succes- 
sions, of  as  noble  lineage  as  any  lineages  of  men,  —  of 
such  are  the  walls  of  Chester.  They  surround  the  old 
city ;  are  nearly  two  miles  in  length,  and  were  originally 
of  the  width  prescribed  in  the  ancient  Roman  manual  of 
Vitruvius,  tk  that  two  armed  men  may  pass  each  other 
without  impediment."  There  are  many  places,  now,  how- 
ever, which  would  by  no  means  come  up  to  that  standard ; 
Nature  having  usurped  much  space  with  her  various 
growths,  and  time  having  been  chipping  away  at  them  as 
well.  In  fact,  on  some  portions  of  the  wall,  there  is  only 
a  narrow  grass}*  footpath,  such  as  might  wind  around  in  a 
village  churchyard.  To  come  up  by  hoary  stone  stairs,  out 
of  the  bustling  street,  atop  of  the  wall,  and  out  on  such  a 
bit  of  footpath  as  this,  with  an  outlook  over  the  Rood  Eye 
meadow  and  off  toward  the  region  of  the  old  Welsh  castles, 
is  a  fine  early-morning  treat  in  Chester.  Some  of  the 
towers  are  now  sunk  to  the  ignoble  uses  of  heterogeneous 
museums.  Old  women  have  the  keys,  and  for  a  fee  admit 
curious  people  to  the  ancient  chambers  and  keeps,  where, 
after  having  the  satisfaction  of  standing  where  kings  have 
stood,  and  looking  off  over  fields  where  kings'  battles  were 
fought,  they  can  gaze  at  glass  cases  full  of  curiosities  and 
relics  of  one  sort  and  another,  sometimes  of  an  incredible 
worthlessness.  In  the  tower  known  as  King  Charles's 
Tower,  from  the  fact  of  Charles  I.  having  stood  there, 
on  the  27th  of  September,  1645,  overlooking  the  to  him 
luckless  battle  of  Rowton  Moor,  is  the  most  miscella- 
neous collection  of  odds  and  ends  ever  offered  to  public 
gaze.  A  very  old  woman  keeps  the  key  of  this  tower,  and 
is  herself  by  no  means  the  least  of  the  curiosities  in  it. 
She  was  born  in  Chester,  and  recollects  well  when  all  the 
space  outside  the  old  walls,  which  is  now  occupied  by  the 
modern  city,  was  chiefly  woods ;  she  used  to  go,  in  her 


212  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

childhood,  to  play  and  to  gather  flowers  in  them.  The 
fact  that  King  Charles  once  looked  through  the  window  of 
this  turret  has  grown,  by  a  sort  of  geometrical  ratio  relative 
to  the  number  of  years  she  has  been  reiterating  the  state- 
ment, into  a  colossally  disproportionate  place  in  her  mind. 

"  The  king,  mem,  stood  just  where  you  're  standin'  now," 
she  says  over  and  over  and  over,  in  a  mechanical  manner, 
as  long  as  you  remain  in  the  tower.  I  wondered  if  she 
said  it°all  night,  in  her  sleep ;  and  if,  if  one  were  to  spend 
a  whole  day  in  the  tower,  she  would  never  stop  saying  it. 
She  was  an  enthusiastic  show-woman  of  her  little  store ; 
undismayed  by  any  amount  of  inditference  on  the  part  of 
her  listeners.  " 'Ere 's  a  face  you  know,  mem,  I  dare 
say,"  producing  from  one  corner  of  the  glass  case  a 
cheap  newspaper  picture,  much  soiled,  of  General  Grant. 
"'Ee  was  in  this  tower  last  summer,  and 'ee  was  much 
hinterested." 

Next  to  General  Grant's  portrait  came  ' '  a  ring  snake 
from  Kentucky."  "It's  my  brother,  mem,  brought  that 
over :  twenty  years  ago,  'ee  was  in  Hamerica.  You  must 
undustand  the  puttin'  of 'em  hup  better  than  we  do,  mem, 
for  'ere 's  these  salamanders  was  only  put  hup  two  years 
ago,  an'  they  've  quite  gone  a'ready,  in  that  time." 

She  had  a  statuette  of  King  Charles,  Cromwell's  chap- 
lain's broth  bowl,  a  bit  of  a  bedquilt  of  Queen  Anne's,  a 
black  snake  from  Australia,  a  fine-tooth  comb  from  Africa, 
a  tattered  fifty-cent  piece  of  American  paper  currency,  and 
a  string  of  shell  money  from  the  South  Sea  Islands,  all 
arranged  in  close  proximity.  Taking  up  the  bit  of  Amer- 
ican currency,  she  held  it  out  toward  us,  saying  inquiringly, 
"  Hextinct  now,  mem,1 1  believe?  "  I  think  she  can  hardly 
have  recovered  even  yet  from  the  bewilderment  into  which 
she  was  thrown  by  our  convulsive  laughter  and  ejaculated 
reply,  "  Oh,  no !  Would  that  it  were  !  " 

In  a  clear  day  can  be  seen  from  this  tower,  a  dozen  or 
so  miles  to  the  south,  the  ruins  of  a  castle  built  by  Earl 
Handel  Blundeville.  He  was  the  Earl  Randel  of  whom 
Roger  Lacy,  constable  of  Cheshire  in  1204,  made  a  famous 
rescue,  once  on  a  time.  The  earl,  it  seems,  was  in  a  des- 
perate strait,  besieged  in  one  of  his  castles  by  the  Welsh  ; 
perhaps  in  this  very  castle.  Roger  Lacy,  hearing  of  the 
earl's  situation,  forthwith  made  a  muster  of  all  the  tramps. 


CHESTER  STREETS.  213 

beggars,  and  rapscallions  he  could  find,  —  "a  tumultuous 
rout,"  says  the  chronicle,  "of  loose,  disorderly,  and  dis- 
solute persons,  players,  minstrels,  shoemakers  and  the 
like, — and  marched  speedily  towards  the  enemy."  The 
Welsh,  seeing  so  great  a  multitude  coming,  raised  their 
siege  and  fled  ;  and  the  earl,  thus  delivered,  showed  his 
gratitude  to  Constable  Roger  by  conferring  upon  him  per- 
petual authority  over  the  loose,  idle  persons  in  Cheshire  ; 
making  the  office  hereditary  in  the  Lacy  family.  A  thank- 
less dignity,  one  would  suppose,  at  best ;  by  no  means  a 
sinecure,  at  any  time,  and  during  the  season  of  the  Mid- 
summer Fairs  a  terrible  responsibility :  it  being  the  law  of 
the  land  that  during  those  fairs  the  city  of  Chester  was 
for  the  space  of  one  month  a  free  city  of  refuge  for  all 
criminals,  of  whatsoever  degree;  in  token  of  which  a 
glove  was  hung  out  at  St.  Peter's  Church,  on  the  first  day 
of  the  fairs. 

There  is  another  good  tale  of  Roger  Lacy's  prowess. 
He  seems  to  have  been  a  roving  fighter,  for  he  once  held 
a  castle  in  Normandy,  for  King  John,  against  the  French, 
"  with  such  gallantry  that  after  all  his  victuals  were  spent, 
having  been  besieged  almost  a  year,  and  many  assaults  of 
the  enemy  made,  but  still  repulsed  by  him,  he  mounts  his 
horse,  and  issues  out  of  the  castle  with  his  troop  into  the 
middest  of  his  enemies,  chnsing  rather  to  die  like  a  soldier, 
than  to  starve  to  death.  He  slew  many  of  the  enemy,  but 
was  at  last  with  much  difficulty  taken  prisoner  ;  so  he  and 
his  soldiers  were  brought  prisoners  to  the  King  of  France, 
where,  by  the  command  of  the  king,  Roger  Lacy  was  to 
be  held  no  strict  prisoner,  for  his  great  honesty  and  trust 
in  keeping  the  Castle  so  gallantly.  .  .  .  King  John's  letter 
to  Roger  Lacy  concerning  the  keeping  of  the  said  castle, 
you  ma}-  see  among  the  Norman  writings  put  out  by 
Andrew  du  Chesne,  and  printed  at  Paris  in  1619."  Of  all 
of  which,  if  no  ballad  have  ever  been  written,  it  is  certain 
that  songs  must  have  been  sung  by  minstrels  at  the  time  : 
and  the  name  of  the  brave  Roger's  lacty-love  was  well 
suited  to  minstrelsy,  she  being  one  Maud  de  Clare.  Plain 
Roger  Lacy  and  Maud  de  Clare  !  The  dullest  fancy  takes 
a  leap  at  the  sound  of  the  two  names. 

In  the  same  old  chronicle  which  gives  these  and  many 
other  narratives  of  Roger  Lacy  is  the  history  of  a  singular, 


214  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

half-witted  being,  who  was  known  in  Vale-Roy  ale,  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  as  Nixon  the  Prophet.  How  much  that 
the  old  records  claim  for  him,  in  the  way  of  minute  and 
minutely  fulfilled  prophecies,  is  to  be  set  down  to  the 
score  of  ignorant  superstition,  it  is  hard  now  to  say  ;  but 
there  must  have  been  some  foundation  in  fact  for  the  nar- 
rative. Robert  Nixon  was  the  son  of  a  farmer  in  Cheshire 
County,  and  was  born  in  the  year  1467.  His  stupidity 
and  ignorance  were  said  to  be  "  invincible."  No  efforts 
could  make  him  understand  anything  save  the  care  of 
cattle,  and  even  in  this  he  showed  at  times  a  brutish  and 
idiotic  cruelty.  He  had  a  very  rough,  coarse  voice,  but 
said  little,  sometimes  passing  whole  months  without  open- 
ing his  lips  to  speak.  He  began  verjr  early  to  foretell 
events,  and  with  an  apparently  preternatural  accuracy. 
When  he  was  a  lad,  he  was  seen,  one  day,  to  abuse  an  ox 
belonging  to  his  brother.  To  a  person  threatening  to  in- 
form his  brother  of  this  act,  Robert  replied  that  three  days 
later  his  brother  would  not  own  the  ox.  Sure  enough,  on 
the  next  day  a  life  inheritance  came  into  the  estate  on 
which  his  brother  was  a  tenant,  and  that  very  ox  was 
taken  for  the  "  heriot  bond  to  the  new  owner."  One  of 
the  abbey  monks  having  displeased  him,  he  exclaimed,  — 

"  When  you  the  harrow  come  on  high, 
Soon  a  raven's  nest  will  be." 

The  couplet  was  thought  at  the  time  to  be  simple  non- 
sense ;  but  as  it  turned  out,  the  last  abbot  of  that  monas- 
tery was  named  Harrow,  and  when  the  king  suppressed 
the  monastery  he  gave  the  domain  to  Sir  Thomas  Holcroft, 
whose  crest  was  a  raven. 

It  was  also  one  of  Nixon's  predictions  that  the  two 
abbeys  of  Vale-Royale  and  Norton  should  meet  on  Orton 
bridge  and  the  thorn  growing  in  the  abbey  yard  should  be 
its  door. 

When  the  abbeys  were  pulled  down,  in  the  time  of  the 
Reformation,  stones  taken  from  each  of  them  were  used  in 
rebuilding  that  bridge  ;  and  the  thorn-tree  was  cut  down, 
and  placed  as  a  barrier  across  the  entrance  to  the  abbey 
court,  to  keep  the  sheep  from  entering  there. 

The  most  remarkable  of  Nixon's  predictions  or  reve- 
lations was  at  the  time  of  the  battle  on  Bosworth  Field 


CHESTER  STREETS.  215 

between  Richard  III.  and  Henry  VII.  On  that  day,  as  he 
was  driving  a  pair  of  oxen,  he  stopped  suddenly,  and  with 
his  whip  pointing  now  one  way,  now  another,  cried  aloud, 
"  Now,  Richard,"  "Now,  Harry  !  "  At  last  he  said,  "  Now, 
Harry,  get  over  that  ditch,  and  you  gain  the  day  !  "  The 
ploughmen  with  him  were  greatly  amazed,  and  related  to 
many  persons  what  had  passed.  "When  a  courier  came 
through  the  country  announcing  the  result  of  the  battle,  he 
verified  every  word  Nixon  had  said. 

This  courier,  when  he  returned  to  court,  recounted  Nix- 
on's predictions ;  and  King  Henry  was  so  impressed  by 
them  that  he  at  once  sent  orders  to  have  him  brought  to 
the  palace. 

Before  this  messenger  arrived,  Nixon  ran  about  like  a 
madman,  weeping  and  crying  that  the  king  was  about 
sending  for  him,  and  that  he  must  go  to  court  to  be 
starved  to  death.  , 

In  a  few  days  the  royal  messenger  appeared.  Nixon  was 
turning  the  spit  in  his  brother's  kitchen.  Just  before  the 
messenger  came  in  sight,  he  shrieked  out,  "He  is  on  the 
road  !  He  is  coming  for  me  !  I  shall  be  starved  !  " 

Lamenting  loudly,  he  was  carried  away  almost  by  force, 
and  taken  into  the  presence  of  the  king,  who  tried  him 
with  various  tests  :  among  others,  he  hid  a  diamond  ring, 
and  commanded  Nixon  to  find  it ;  but  all  the  answer  he  got 
from  the  cunning  varlet  was,  "  He  that  hideth  can  find." 
The  king  caused  all  he  said  to  be  carefully  noted  and  put 
down  in  writing ;  gave  him  the  run  of  the  palace,  and  com- 
manded that  no  one  should  molest  or  offend  him  in  any 
way. 

One  day,  when  the  king  was  setting  off  on  a  hunt,  Nixon 
ran  to  him,  crying  and  begging  to  be  allowed  to  go  too; 
saying  that  his  time  had  come  now,  and  he  would  be 
starved  if  he  were  left  behind.  To  humor  his  whim  and 
ease  his  fears,  the  king  gave  him  into  the  especial  charge 
and  keeping  of  one  of  the  chief  officers  of  the  court.  The 
officer,  in  turn,  to  make  sure  that  no  ill  befell  the  poor 
fellow,  locked  him  up  in  one  of  his  private  rooms,  and  with 
his  own  hands  carried  food  to  him.  But  after  a  day  or 
two,  a  very  urgent  message  from  the  king  calling  this 
officer  suddenly  away,  in  the  haste  of  his  departure  he  for- 
got Nixon,'  and  left  him  locked  up  in  the  apartment.  No 


216  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

one  missed  him  or  discovered  him  ;  and  when  at  the  end  of 
three  days  the  officer  returned,  Nixon  was  found  dead,  — 
dead,  as  he  had  himself  foretold,  of  starvation.  It  is  a 
strange  and  pitiful  story,  a  tale  suited  to  its  century,  and 
could  not  be  left  out  were  there  ever  to  be  written  a  ballad- 
history  of  the  Vale-Royale's  olden  days. 

It  is  a  question,  in  earl}*  mornings  in  Chester,  whether  to 
take  a  turn  on  the  ancient  walls,  listening  to  echoes  such  us 
these  from  all  the  fair  country  in  sight  in  embrace  of  the 
Dee,  or  to  saunter  through  the  market,  and  hear  the  shriller 
but  no  less  characteristic  voice  of  Cestrian  life  to-day. 

Markets  are  always  good  vantage-grounds  for  studying 
the  life  and  people  of  a  place  or  region.  The  true  traveller 
never  feels  completely  at  home  in  a  town  till  he  has  been 
in  the  markets.  Many  times  I  have  gathered  from  the 
chance  speech  of  an  ignorant  market  man  or  woman  in- 
formation I  had  been  in  search  of  for  days.  Markets  are 
especially  interesting  in  places  where  caste  and  class  lines 
are  strongly  drawn,  as  in  England.  The  market  man  or 
woman  whose  ancestors  have  been  of  the  same  following, 
and  who  has  no  higher  ambition  in  life  than  to  continue, 
and  if  possible  enhance,  the  good  will  and  the  good  name 
of  the  business,  is  good  authority  to  consult  on  all  matters 
within  his  range.  There  is  a  self-poise  about  him,  the 
result  of  his  satisfaction  with  his  own  position,  which  is 
dignified  and  pleasing. 

On  my  last  morning  in  Chester,  I  spent  an  hour  or  two 
in  the  markets,  and  encountered  two  good  specimens  of 
this  class.  One  was  a  fair,  slender  girl,  so  unexception- 
ably  dressed  in  a  plain,  well-cut  ulster  that,  as  I  observed 
her  in  the  crowd  of  market-women,  I  supposed  she  was 
a  young  housekeeper,  out  for  her  early  marketing ;  but 
presently,  to  my  great  astonishment,  I  saw  her  with  her 
own  hands  measuring  onions  into  a  huckster-woman's 
basket.  On  drawing  nearer,  I  discovered  that  she  was 
the  proprietress  of  a  natty  vegetable  cart,  piled  full  of  all 
sorts  of  green  stuff,  which  she  was  selling  to  the  sellers. 
She  could  not  have  been  more  than  eighteen.  Her  mari- 
ner and  speech  were  prompt,  decisive,  business-like  ;  she 
wasted  no  words  in  her  transactions.  Her  little  brother 
held  the  sturdy  pony's  reins,  and  she  stood  by  the  side  of 
the  cart,  ready  to  take  orders.  She  said  that  she  lived  ten 


CHESTER  STREETS.  217 

miles  out  of  town  ;  that  she  and  her  three  brothers  had  a 
large  market  garden,  of  which  they  did  all  the  work  with 
their  own  hands,  and  she  and  this  lad  brought  the  produce 
to  market  daih*. 

"  I  make  more  sellin'  'olesale  than  sellin'  standin',"  she 
said;  "an'  I'm  'ome  again  by  ten  o'clock,  k>  be  at  the 
work." 

I  observed  that  all  who  bought  from  her  addressed  her 
as  "  miss,"  and  bore  themselves  toward  her  with  a  certain 
respectfulness  of  demeanor,  showing  that  they  considered 
her  avocation  a  grade  or  so  above  their  own. 

A  matronly  woman,  with  pink  cheeks  and  bright  hazel 
e^'es,  had  walked  in  from  her  farm,  a  distance  of  six  miles, 
because  the  load  of  greens,  eggs,  poultry,  and  flowers  was 
all  that  her  small  pony  could  draw.  Beautiful  moss  roses 
she  had,  at  "  thrippence"  a  bunch. 

"No,  no,  Ada,  not  any  more,"  she  said,  in  a  delicious 
low  voice,  to  a  child  b}*  her  side,  who  was  slyly  taking  a 
rose  from  one  of  the  baskets.  "  You  've  enough  there. 
It  hurts  them  to  lie  in  the  'ot  sun.  — My  daughter,  mem," 
she  explained,  as  the  little  thing  shrunk  back,  covered 
with  confusion,  and  pretended  to  be  very  busy  arranging 
the  flowers  on  a  little  board  laid  across  two  stones,  behind 
which  she  was  squatted,  —  "  my  daughter,  mem.  All  the 
profits  of  the  flowers  they  sell  are  their  own,  mem.  They 
puts  it  all  in  the  missionary  box.  They  'd  eighteen  an' 
six  last  year,  mem,  in  all,  besides  what  they  put  in  the 
school  box.  Yes,  mem,  indeed  they  had." 

It  struck  me  that  this  devout  mother  took  a  strange  view 
of  the  meaning  of  the  word  "  own,"  and  I  did  not  spend 
so  much  money  on  Ada's  flowers  as  I  would  have  done  if 
I  had  thought  Ada  would  have  the  spending  of  it  herself, 
in  her  own  childish  way.  But  I  bought  a  big  bunch  of 
red  and  white  daisies,  and  another  of  columbines,  white 
pinks,  ivy,  and  poppies  ;  and  the  little  maid,  barely  ten 
years  old,  took  my  silver,  made  change,  and  gave  me 
the  flowers  with  a  winsome  smile  and  a  genuine  market- 
woman's  "  Thank  you,  mem." 

It  was  a  pretty  scene :  the  open  space  in  front  of  the 
market  building,  filled  with  baskets,  bags,  barrows,  piles 
of  fresh  green  things,  chiefly  of  those  endless  cabbage 
species,  which  England  so  proudly  enumerates  when  called 


218  SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND. 

upon  to  mention  her  vegetables ;  the  dealers  were  prin- 
cipally women,  with  fresh,  fair  faces,  ros}*  cheeks,  and 
soft  voices ;  in  the  outer  circle,  scores  of  tiny  donkey- 
carts,  in  which  the  vegetables  had  been  brought.  One 
chubbv  little  girl,  surely  not  more  than  seven,  was  begin- 
ning her  market-woman's  training  by  minding  the  donkey, 
while  her  mother  attended  to  trade.  As  she  stood  by  the 
donkey's  side,  her  head  barely  reached  to  his  ears  ;  but  he 
entered  very  cleverly  into  the  spirit  of  the  farce  of  being 
kept  in  place  by  such  a  mite,  and  to  that  end  employed 
her  busily  in  feeding  him  with  handfuls  of  grass.  Jf  she 
stopped,  he  poked  his  nose  into  her  neck  and  rummaged 
under  her  chin,  till  she  began  again.  All  had  flowers  to 
sell,  if  it  were  only  a  single  bunch,  or  plant  in  a  pot ;  and 
there  were  in  the  building  several  fine  stalls  entirety  filled 
with  flowers,  —  roses,  carnations,  geraniums,  and  wonder- 
ful pansies.  Noticing,  in  one  stall,  a  blossom  I  had  never 
before  seen,  I  asked  the  old  woman  who  kept  the  stand  to 
tell  me  its  name.  She  clapped  her  hand  to  her  head  trag- 
ically. "'Deed,  mem,  it's  strange.  Ye 're  the  second 
has  asked  me  the  name  o'  that  flower ;  an'  it 's  gone  out 
o'  my  head.  If  the  young  lady  that  has  the  next  stand 
was  here,  she  'd  tell  ye.  It  was  from  her  I  got  the  roots  : 
she  's  a  great  botanist,  mem,  an'  a  fine  gardener.  Could 
I  send  ye  the  name  o'  't,  mem  ?  I  'd  be  pleased  to  accom- 
modate ye,  an'  may  be  ye  'd.like  a  root  or  two  o'  't.  It  'a 
a  free  grower.  We  've  'ad  a  death  in  the  house,  mem,  — * 
my  little  grandchild,  only  a  few  hours  ill,  —  an'  it  seems 
like  it  'ad  confused  the  'ole  'ouse.  We  've  not  'ad  'eart  to 
take  pains  with  the  flowers  yet." 

The  old  woman's  artless,  garrulous  words  smote  like  a 
sudden  bell-note  echo  from  a  far  past,  —  an  echo  that 
never  ceases  for  hearts  that  have  once  known  how  bell- 
notes  sound  when  bells  toll  for  beloved  dead!  The 
thoughts  her  words  woke  seemed  to  span  Chester's  cen- 
turies more  vividly  than  all  the  old  chronicle  traditions 
and  legends,  than  sculptured  Roman  altar,  or  coin,  or 
graven  stonr  in  stone.  The  strange  changes  they  recorded 
were  but  things  of  the  surface,  conditions  of  the  hour. 
Through  and  past  them  all,  life  remained  the  same.  Grief 
and  joy  do  not  alter  shape  or  sort.  Love  and  love's  losses 
and  hurts  are  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever. 


III. 

NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY. 


m. 

NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY. 

BERGEN  DAYS. 

THE  hardest  way  to  go  to  Norway  is  by  way  of  the 
North  Sea.  It  is  two  days'  and  two  nights'  sail  from  Hull 
to  Bergen ;  and  two  days  and  two  nights  on  the  North 
Sea  are  nearly  as  bad  as  two  days  and  two  nights  on  the 
English  Channel  would  be.  But  the  hardest  way  is  the 
best  way,  in  this  as  in  so  many  other  things.  No  possible 
approach  to  Norway  from  the  Continent  can  give  one  the 
sudden  characteristic  impression  of  Norway  sea  and  shore 
which  he  gets  as  he  sails  up  the  Stavanger  Fjord,  and  sees 
the  town  of  Stavanger  looking  off  from  its  hillside  over 
the  fleets  of  island  and  rock  that  lie  moored  in  its  harbor. 

At  first  sight  it  seems  as  if  there  were  no  Norway  coast 
at  all,  only  an  endless  series  of  islands  beyond  islands, 
never  stayed  by  any  barrier  of  mainland  ;  or  as  if  the  main- 
land itself  must  be  being  disintegrated  from  its  very  centre 
outwards,  breaking  up  and  crumbling  into  pieces.  Surely, 
the  waters,  when  they  were  commanded  to  stay  from  off 
the  earth,  yielded  the  command  but  a  fragmentary  obedi- 
ence so  far  as  this  region  was  concerned. 

The  tradition  of  the  creation  of  Norway  seems  a  nat- 
ural outgrowth  of  the  place, — the  only  way,  in  fact,  of 
accounting  for  the  lay  of  the  land.  The  legend  declares 
that  Norway  was  made  last,  and  in  this  wise :  On  the 
seventh  day,  while  God  was  resting  from  his  labors,  the 
devil,  full  of  spite  at  seeing  so  fair  a  world,  hurled  into 
the  ocean  a  gigantic  rock,  —  a  rock  so  large  that  it  threat- 
ened to  break  the  axis  of  the  universe.  But  the  Lord 
seized  it,  and  fixed  it  firm  in  place,  with  its  myriad  jutting 
points  just  above  the  waters.  Between  these  points  he 


222        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

scattered  all  the  earth  he  had  left ;  nothing  like  enough  to 
cover  the  rock,  or  to  make  a  respectable  continent,  — 
only  just  enough  to  redeem  spots  here  and  there,  and  give 
man  a  foothold  on  it.  The  fact  that  forty  per  cent  of  the 
whole  surface  of  Norway  is  over  three  thousand  feet  above 
the  sea  is  certainly  a  corroboration  of  this  legend. 

This  island  fringe  gives  to  the  coast  of  Norway  an  in- 
definable charm,  —  the  charm  of  endless  maze,  vista,  ex- 
pectation, and  surprise ;  lure,  also,  suggestion,  dim  hint, 
and  reticent  revelation,  like  a  character  one  cannot  fathom, 
and  behavior  one  can  never  reckon  on.  Though  the 
ship  sail  in  and  out  of  the  labyrinths  never  so  safely  and 
quickly,  fancy  is  always  bus}'  at  deep-sea  soundings ;  be- 
wildered by  the  myriad  shapes,  and  half  conscious  of  a 
sort  of  rhythm  in  their  swift,  perpetual  change,  as  if  they, 
and  not  the  ship,  were  gliding.  The  vivid  verdure  on 
them  in  spots  has  more  the  expression  of  something  mo- 
mentaril}*  donned  and  worn  than  of  a  growth.  It  seems 
accidental  and  decorative,  flung  on  suddenly  ;  then,  again, 
soft,  thick,  inexhaustible,  as  if  the  islands  might  be  the 
tops  of  drowned  forests. 

Stavanger  is  one  of  the  most  ancient  towns  in  Norway. 
It  looks  as  if  it  were  one  of  the  most  ancient  in  the  world ; 
its  very  brightness,  with  its  faded  red  houses,  open  win- 
dows, and  rugged  pavements,  being  like  the  color  and 
smile  one  sees  sometimes  on  a  cheerful,  wrinkled,  old  face. 
The  houses  are  packed  close  together,  going  up-hill  as 
hard  as  they  can ;  roofs  red  tiled  ;  gable  ends  red  tiled 
also,  which  gives  a  droll  ej-ebrow  effect  to  the  ends  of  the 
houses,  and  helps  wonderfully  to  show  off  pretty  faces 
just  beneath  them,  looking  out  of  windows.  All  the  win- 
dows open  in  the  middle,  outwards,  like  shutters ;  and  it 
would  not  be  much  risk  to  say  that  there  is  not  a  window- 
sill  in  all  Stavanger  without  flowers.  Certainly,  we  did 
not  see  one  in  a  three  hours'  ramble.  From  an  old  watch- 
tower,  which  stands  on  the  top  of  the  first  sharp  hill  above 
the  harbor,  is  #  sweeping  off-look,  seaward  and  constward, 
to  north  and  south  :  long  promontories,  green  and  curving, 
with  low  red  roofs  here  and  there,  shot  up  into  relief  by 
the  sharp  contrast  of  color ;  bays  of  blue  water  break- 
ing in  between  ;  distant  ranges  of  mountains  glittering 
white  ;  thousands  of  islands  in  sight  at  once.  Stavanger's 


BERGEN  DAYS.  223 

approach  strikes  Norway's  key-note  with  a  bold  hand,  and 
old  Norway  and  new  Norway  meet  in  Stavanger's  market- 
place. An  old  cathedral,  the  oldest  but  one  in  the  coun- 
try, looks  down  a  little  inner  harbor,  where  lie  sloops 
loaded  with  gay  pottery  of  shapes  and  colors  copied  from 
the  latest  patterns  out  in  Staffordshire.  These  are  made 
by  peasants  many  miles  awa}-,  on  the  shores  of  the  fjords : 
bowls,  jars,  flower-pots,  jugs,  and  plates,  brown,  cream- 
colored,  red,  and  white  ;  painted  with  flowers,  and  decorated 
with  Grecian  and  Etruscan  patterns  in  simple  lines.  The 
sloop  decks  are  piled  high  with  them,  —  a  gay  show,  and 
an  odd  enough  freight  to  be  at  sea  in  a  storm.  The  sail- 
ors' heads  bob  up  and  down  among  the  pots  and  pans, 
and  the  salesman  sits  flat  on  the  deck,  lost  from  view,  un- 
til a  purchaser  appears.  Miraculously  cheap  this  pottery 
is,  as  well  as  fantastic  of  shape  and  color ;  one  could  fit 
out  his  table  off  one  of  these  crockery  sloops,  for  next 
to  nothing.  Along  the  wharves  were  market-stands  of  all 
sorts :  old  women  selling  fuchsias,  myrtles,  carrots,  and 
cabbages,  and  blueberries,  all  together ;  piles  of  wooden 
shoes,  too,  —  clums}'  things,  hollowed  out  of  a  single 
chunk  of  wood,  shaped  like  a  Chinese  junk  keel,  and 
coarsely  daubed  with  black  paint  on  the  outside  ;  no  heel 
to  hold  them  on,  and  but  little  toe.  The  racket  made  by 
shuffling  along  on  pavements  in  them  is  amazing,  and 
"down  at  the  heel"  becomes  a  phrase  of  new  significance,  ' 
after  one  has  heard  the  thing  done  in  Norway. 

Just  outside  the  market-place  we  came  upon  our  first 
cariole  ;  it  was  going  by  like  the  wind,  drawn  by  a  little 
Norwegian  pony,  which  seemed  part  pincushion,  part 
spaniel,  part  fat  snowbird,  and  the  rest  pony,  with  a  shoe- 
brush,  bristles  up,  for  a  mane.  Such  good-will  in  his  trot, 
and  such  a  sense  of  honor  and  independence  in  the  wrig- 
gle of  his  head,  and  such  affectionateness  all  over  him,  no 
wonder  the  Norwegians  love  such  a  species  of  grown-up 
useful  pet  dogs.  Hardy  they  are,  and,  if  they  choose, 
swift ;  obey  voices  better  than  whips,  and  would  rather 
have  bread  than  hay  to  eat,  at  any  time  of  da^y.  The  car- 
iole is  a  kind  of  compressed  sulky,  open,  without  springs  ; 
the  narrow  seat,  narrow  even  for  one  person,  set  high  up 
on  elastic  wooden  shafts,  which  rest  on  the  axle-tree  at  the 
back,  and  on  a  sort  of  saddle-piece  in  front.  The  horse 


224        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

is  harnessed  very  far  forward  in  the  low  thills,  and  has  the 
direct  weight  on  his  shoulders.  A  queerer  sight  than  such 
a  vehicle  as  this,  coming  at  a  Norwegian  pony's  best  rate 
towards  you,  with  a  pretty  Norwegian  girl  driving,  and 
standing  up  on  the  cross-piece  behind  her  a  handsome 
Norwegian  officer,  with  his  plumed  head  above  hers,  bent 
a  little  to  the  right  or  left,  and  very  close,  lovers  of  human 
nature  in  picturesque  situations  need  not  wish  to  see. 
Less  picturesque,  and  no  doubt  less  happ}*  for  the  time 
being,  but  no  less  characteristic,  was  the  first  family  we 
saw  in  Stavanger  taking  an  airing ;  a  square  wooden  box 
for  a  wagon,  —  nothing  more  than  a  vegetable  bin  on 
wheels.  This  held  two  large  milk-cans,  several  bushels 
of  cabbages,  four  children,  and  their  mother.  The  father 
walked  sturdily  beside  the  wagon,  his  head  bent  down,  like 
his  pony's  ;  serious  eyes,  a  resolute  mouth,  and  a  certain 
look  of  unjoyous  content  marked  him  as  a  good  specimen 
of  the  best  sort  of  Norwegian  peasant.  The  woman  and 
the  children  wore  the  same  look  of  unjoyous  and  unmirth- 
ful  content ;  silent,  serious, .  satisfied,  they  all  sat  still 
among  the  cabbages.  So  solemn  a  thing  is  it  to  be  born 
in  latitude  north.  Had  those  cabbages  grown  in  the 
Campagna,  the  man  would  have  been  singing,  the  woman 
laughing,  and  the  young  ones  rolling  about  in  the  cart  like 
kittens. 

From  Stavanger  to  Bergen  is  a  half-day's  sail :  in  and 
out  among  islands,  promontories,  inlets,  rocks ;  now  wide 
sea  on  one  hand,  and  rugged  shore  on  the  other ;  now  a 
very  archipelago  of  bits  of  land  and  stone  flung  about  in 
chaotic  confusion,  on  all  sides.  Many  of  the  islands  are 
nothing  but  low  beds  of  granite,  looking  as  if  it  were  in 
flaky  slices  like  mica,  or  else  minutely  roughened  and  stip- 
pled, as  though  cooled  suddenly  from  a  tremendous  boil. 
Some  of  these  islands  have  oases  of  green  in  them  ;  tiny 
red  farm-houses,  sunk  in  hollows,  with  narrow  settings  of 
emerald  around  them ;  hand's-breadth  patches  of  grain 
here  and  there,  left  behind  as  from  some  harvest,  which 
the  hungry  sea  is  following  after  to  glean.  No  language 
can  describe  the  fantastic,  elusive  charm  of  this  islet  and 
rocklet  universe :  half  sadness,  half  cheer,  half  lonely, 
half  teeming,  altogether  brilliant  and  brimming  with 
beauty ;  green  land,  gray  rock,  and  blue  water,  surging, 


BERGEN  DAYS.  225 

swaying,  blending,  parting,  dancing  together,  in  stately 
and  contagious  pleasure.  On  the  north  horizon  rise  grand 
snow-topped  peaks ;  broad  blue  bays  make  up  into  the 
land  walled  by  mountains ;  snow  fjelds  and  glaciers  glit- 
ter in  the  distance ;  and  waterfalls,  like  silver  threads, 
shine  from  afar  on  the  misty  clouds.  At  every  new  turn 
is  a  hamlet  or  house,  looking  as  if  it  had  just  crept  into 
shelter ;  one  solitary  boat  moored  at  the  base  of  its  rock, 
often  the  only  token  of  a  link  kept  with  the  outer  world. 
(  The  half-day's  sail  from  Stavanger  to  Bergen  is  all  like 
this,  except  that  after  one  turns  southward  into  the  Bergen 
Fjord  the  mysterious  islanded  shores  press  closer,  and  the 
hill  shores  back  of  them  rise  higher,  so  that  expectancy 
and  wonder  deepen  moment  by  moment,  till  the  moment  of 
landing  on  Bergen's  water  rim.  "Will  there  be  carriages 
at  the  wharf?  "  we  had  asked  of  the  terrible  stewardess  who 
had  tyrannized  over  our  ship  for  two  days,  like  a  French 
Revolution  fishwoman.  "  Carriages  !  "  she  cried,  with  her 
arms  akimbo.  "The  streets  in  Bergen  are  so  steep  car- 
riages can't  drive  down  them.  The  horses  would  tumble 
back  on  the  carriage," — a  purely  gratuitous  fiction  on 
her  part,  for  what  motive  it  is  hard  to  conceive.  But  it 
much  enhanced  the  interest  with  which  we  gazed  at  the 
rounding  hills,  slowly  hemming  us  in  closer  and  closer,  and 
looking  quite  steep  enough  to  justify  the  stewardess's  as- 
sertion. By  clocks,  it  was  ten  o'clock  at  night ;  by  sk}% 
about  dawn,  or  just  after  sunset ;  by  air,  atmosphere, 
light,  no  time  which  any  human  being  ever  heard  named 
or  defined.  There  is  nothing  in  any  known  calendar  of 
da3'light,  twilight,  or  nightlight  which  is  like  this  Norwe- 
gian interval  between  two  lights.  It  is  weird,  bewildering, 
disconcerting.  You  don't  know  whether  you  are  glad  or 
sorry,  pleased  or  scared  ;  whether  you  realh7  can  see  or 
not;  whether  you'd  better  begin  another  day's  work  at 
once,  or  make  believe  it  is  time  to  go  to  bed. 

If  somebody  would  invent  a  word  which  should  bear 
the  same  interesting,  specific,  and  intelligible  relation  to 
light  and  dark  that  "amphibious"  does  to  land  and  water, 
it  would  be,  in  describing  Norway  twilight,  of  more  use 
than  all  the  rest  of  the  English  language  put  together. 
Perhaps  the  Norwegians  have  such  a  word.  I  think  it 
highly  probable  they  have,  and  I  wish  I  knew  it. 
15 


226        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

In  this  strange  illuminated  twilight,  we  landed  on  the 
silent  Bergen  wharf.  The  quay  was  in  shadow  of  high 
warehouses.  A  few  nonchalant  and  leisurely  men  and  boys 
were  ambling  about ;  custom-house  men,  speaking  the  jar- 
gon of  their  race,  went  through  the  farce  of  appearing  to 
ransack  our  luggage.  Our  party  seemed  instantaneously 
to  have  disintegrated,  in  the  half  darkness,  into  odds  and 
ends  of  unassorted  boxes  and  people,  and  it  was  with  grati- 
tude as  for  a  succession  of  interpositions  of  a  superior  and 
invincible  power  that  we  finally  found  ourselves  together 
again  in  one  hotel,  and  decided  that,  on  the  whole,  it  was 
best  to  go  to  bed,  in  spite  of  the  light,  because,  as  it  was 
already  near  midnight,  it  would  very  soon  be  still  lighter, 
and  there  would  be  no  going  to  bed  at  all. 

The  next  day,  we  began  Bergen  by  driving  out  of  it  (a 
good  way  always,  to  begin  a  place).  No  going  out  of 
Bergen  eastward  or  westward  except  straight  up  skyward, 
so  steep  are  the  slopes.  Southward  the  country  opens  by- 
gentler  ascents,  and  pretty  country  houses  are  built  along 
the  road  for  miles,  —  all  of  wood,  and  of  light  colors, 
with  much  fantastic  carving  about  them  ;  summer  -  houses 
perched  on  the  terraces,  among  lime,  birch,  and  ash  trees. 
One  which  we  saw  was  in  octagon  shape,  and  had  the 
roof  thick  sodded  with  grass,  which  waved  in  the  wind. 
The  eight  open  spaces  of  the  sides  were  draped  with 
bright  scarlet  curtains,  drawn  away  tight  on  each  side, 
making  a  Gothic  arch  line  of  red  at  each  opening.  It 
looked  like  somebody's  gay  palanquin  set  down  to  wait. 

Our  driver's  name  was  Nils.  He  matched  it :  short, 
sturdy,  and  good-natured  ;  red  cheeks  and  shining  brown 
eyes.  His  ponies  scrambled  along  splendidly,  and  stopped 
to  rest  whenever  they  felt  like  it,  —  not  often,  to  be  sure, 
but  they  had  their  own  way  whenever  they  did,  and  were 
allowed  to  stand  still.  Generally  they  put  their  heads 
down  and  started  off  of  their  own  accord  in  a  few  seconds  ; 
occasionally  Nils  reminded  them  by  a  chuckle  to  go  on. 

There  is  no  need  of  any  society  for  the  prevention  of 
cruelty  to  animals  in  Norway.  The  Norwegian  seems 
to  be  instinctively  kind  to  all  beasts  of  bondage.  At  the 
foot  of  steep  hills  is  to  be  seen  everywhere  the  sign,  "  Do 
not  forget  to  rest  the  horses."  The  noise  Nils  made  when 
he  wished  to  stop  his  ponies  gave  us  a  fright,  the  first  time 


BERGEN  DAYS.  227 

we  heard  it.  It  is  the  drollest  sound  ever  invented  for  such 
a  use  :  a  loud  call  of  rolling  r's  /  an  ingenious  human  parody 
on  a  watchman's  rattle ;  a  cross  between  a  bellow  and  a 
purr.  It  is  universal  in  Norway,  but  one  can  never  become 
accustomed  to  it  unless  he  has  heard  it  from  infancy  up. 

The  wild  and  wooded  country  through  which  we  drove 
was  like  parts  of  the  northern  hill  countiy  of  New  England  : 
steep,  stony  hills ;  nooks  full  6f  ferns ;  bits  of  meadow  in 
sunlight  and  shadow,  with  clover,  and  buttercups,  and 
bluebells,  and  great  mossy  bowlders  ;  farm-houses  snugged 
down  in  hollows  to  escape  the  wind ;  lovely  dark  tarns, 
with  pond-lilies  afloat,  just  too  far  from  the  shore  for  arms 
to  reach  them.  Only  when  we  met  people,  or  when  the 
great  blue  fjord  gleamed  through  the  trees  below  us,  did 
we  know  we  were  away  from  home.  It  is  a  glory  when 
an  arm  of  the  sea  reaches  up  into  the  heart  of  a  hill  coun- 
try, so  that  men  may  sail  to  and  from  mountain  bases.  No 
wonder  that  the  Vikings  went  forth  with  the  passion  of  con- 
quering, and  yet  forever  returned  and  returned,  with  the 
passion  of  loving  their  gamle  Norge. 

When  we  came  back  to  the  inn,  we  were  invited  into  the 
landlady's  own  parlor,  and  there  were  served  to  us  wine 
and  milk  and  sweet  tarts,  in  a  gracious  and  simple  hospital- 
ity. The  landlady  and  her  sister  were  beautiful  old  ladies, 
well  past  sixty,  with  skins  like  peaches,  and  bright  eyes 
and  quick  smiles.  High  caps  of  white  lace,  trimmed  with 
sky-blue  ribbons,  and  blue  ostrich  feathers  laid  on  them  like 
wreaths  above  the  forehead,  gave  to  their  expression  a  sort 
of  infantile  elegance  which  was  bewitching  in  its  unworld- 
liuess ;  small  white  shawls  thrown  over  their  shoulders, 
and  reaching  only  just  below  the  belt,  like  those  worn 
by  old  Quaker  women,  corroborated  the  simplicity  of  the 
blue  ribbons,  and  added  to  the  charm.  They  had  all  the 
freshness  and  spotlessness  of  Quakers,  with  color  and 
plumes  added ;  a  combination  surely  unique  of  its  kind. 
One  of  these  old  ladies  was  as  gay  a  chatterer  as  if  she 
were  only  seventeen.  She  had  not  one  tooth  in  her  mouth  ; 
but  her  mouth  was  no  more  made  ugly  by  the  absence  of 
teeth,  as  are  most  old  women's  mouths,  than  a  baby's 
mouth  is  made  ugly  by  the  same  lack.  The  lips  were  full 
and  soft  and  red  ;  her  face  was  not  wrinkled  ;  and  when  she 
talked  and  laughed  and  nodded,  the  blue  ostrich  feathers 


228          NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

bobbing  above,  she  looked  like  some  sort  of  miraculous 
baby,  that  had  learned  to  talk  before  "  teething." 

Her  niece,  who  was  our  only  interpreter,  and  too  shy 
to  use  quickly  and  fluently  even  the  English  she  knew, 
was  in  despair  at  trying  to  translate  her.  "It  is  too 
much,  too  much,"  she  said.  "  I  cannot  follow  ;  I  am  too 
far  behind,"  and  she  laughed  as  heartily  as  her  aunt.  The 
old  lady  was  brimful  of  stories :  she  had  known  Bergen, 
in  and  out,  for  half  a  century,  and  forgotten  nothing.  It 
was  a  great  pleasure  to  set  her  going,  and  get  at  her  nar- 
rative by  peeps,  as  one  sees  a  landscape  through  chinks  in 
a  fence,  when  one  is  whirling  by  in  a  railway  train.  One 
of  her  best  stories  was  of  "the  man  who  was  brought  back 
from  the  dead  by  coffee." 

It  seemed  that  when  she  was  young  there  lived  in  Bergen 
three  old  women,  past  whose  house  an  eccentric  old  bach- 
elor used  to  walk  every  day  at  a  certain  hour.  When  he 
came  back  from  his  walk,  he  always  stopped  at  their  house 
and  drank  a  cup  of  coffee.  This  he  had  done  for  a  great 
many  years.  "  He  was  their  watch  to  tell  the  time  by," 
and  when  he  first  passed  the  house  they  began  to  make 
the  coffee,  that  it  should  be  ready  on  his  return.  At  last 
he  fell  ill  and  died,  and  two  of  these  old  women  were  hired 
to  sit  up  one  night  and  watch  the  corpse.  It  is  the  custom 
in  Norway  to  keep  all  dead  bodies  one  week  before  burial, 
if  not  in  the  house  where  they  have  died,  then  in  the  chapel 
at  the  graveyard.  "  When  we  do  die  on  a  Wednesday, 
we  shall  not  be  buried  till  another  Wednesday  have  come," 
said  the  niece,  explaining  this  custom. 

These  old  women  were  sitting  in  the  room  with  the 
corpse,  talking  and  sipping  hot  coffee  together,  and  saying 
how  they  should  miss  him ;  that  never  more  would  he  go 
by  their  house  and  stop  to  get  his  coffee. 

"At  any  rate,  he  shall  taste  the  coffee  once  more,"  said 
one  of  them,  and  she  put  a  spoonful  of  the  hot  coffee  into 
the  corpse's  lips,  at  which  the  old  gentleman  stirred,  drew 
a  long  breath,  and  began  to  lift  himself  up,  upon  which 
the  women  uttered  such  shrieks  that  the  city  watchman, 
passing  by,  broke  quickly  into  the  house,  to  see  what  was 
the  matter.  Entering  the  room,  he  found  the  watchers 
senseless  on  the  floor,  and  the  corpse  sitting  bolt  upright 
in  his  coffin,  looking  around  him,  much  bewildered.  *•  And 


BERGEN  DAYS.  229 

he  did  live  many  years  after  that  time,  —  man}-,  many 
years.     My  aunt  did  know  him  well,"  said  the  niece. 

Other  of  her  stories  were  of  the  sort  common  to  the 
whole  world,  —  stories  of  the  love,  sorrow,  tragedy,  mys- 
tery, which  are  inwoven  in  the  very  warp  and  woof  of 
human  life ;  the  same  on  the  bleak  North  Sea  coast  as  on 
bright  Southern  shores.  It  seemed,  however,  a  little  more 
desolate  to  have  lived  in  the  sunless  North  seventy  years 
of  such  life  as  had  been  dealt  to  one  Bergen  woman,  who 
had  but  just  passed  away.  Seventy  years  she  had  lived  in 
Bergen,  the  last  thirty  alone,  with  one  servant.  In  her 
youth  she  had  been  beautiful ;  and  when  she  was  still  little 
more  than  a  child  had  come  to  love  very  dearly  the  eldest 
son  in  a  neighbor's  house.  Their  parents  were  friends  ;  the 
j-oung  people  saw  each  other  without  restraint,  familiarly, 
fondly,  and  a  great  love  grew  up  between  them.  They 
were  suffered  to  become  betrothed,  but  for  some  unassigned 
reason  their  marriage  was  forbidden.  For  years  the}7  bore 
with  strange  patience  their  parents'  apparently  capricious 
decision.  At  last  the  blow  fell.  One  of  the  fathers,  lying  , 
at  the  point  of  death,  revealed  a  terrible  secret.  This 
faithful  betrothed  man  and  woman  were  own  brother  and 
sister.  The  shame  of  two  homes,  the  guilt  of  two  unsus- 
pected wrong-doers,  was  told ;  the  mystery  was  cleared 
up,  and  more  than  one  heart  broken.  Bitter  as  was  the 
grief  of  the  two  betrothed,  who  could  now  never  wed,  there 
must  have  been  grief  still  more  terrible  in  the  hearts  of 
those  long  ago  wedded,  and  so  long  deceived.  The  father 
died  as  soon  as  he  had  confessed  the  guilt}-  secret.  The 
young  man  left  Norway,  and  died  in  some  far  country. 
The  girl  lived  on,  —  lived  to  be  seventy,  —  alone  with  her 
sorrow  and  disgrace. 

Two  other  Bergen  lovers  had  had  better  fate.  Spite  of 
fathers  and  mothers  who  had  forbidden  them  to  meet,  it 
fell  out  for  them  to  be  safely  married,  one  night,  in  the 
very  teeth  of  the  closest  watching.  The  girl  was  per- 
mitted to  go,  under  the  escort  of  a  faithful  man-servant,  to 
a  wedding  dance  at  a  friend's  house.  The  man-servant 
was  ordered  to  stand  guard  at  the  door,  till  the  dance  was 
over;  if  the  lover  appeared,  the  girl  was  to  be  instantly 
taken  home.  Strange  oversight,  for  parents  so  much  in 
earnest  as  that,  to  forget  that  houses  have  more  than  one 


230        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

door!  When  the  mirth  was  at  its  height,  the  girl  stole 
away  by  the  back  door,  and  fled  to  her  lover.  At  length 
the  dance  was  over,  and  the  guests  were  leaving ;  anx- 
iously the  faithful  servitor,  who  had  never  once  left  the 
doorstep,  looked  for  his  young  mistress.  The  last  guest 
departed ;  his  mistress  did  not  appear.  In  great  terror 
he  entered  ;  the  house  was  searched  in  vain  ;  no  one  knew 
when  she  had  taken  her  leave.  Trembling,  he  ran  back 
to  the  father  with  the  unwelcome  news  ;  and  both  going 
in  hot  haste  to  the  lover's  house,  there  they  found  the  two 
young  people  sitting  gay  and  happy  over  cake  and  wine, 
with  the  excellent  clergyman  who  had  that  very  hour  made 
them  man  and  wife. 

The  old  lady  had  a  firm  and  unalterable  belief  in  ghosts, 
as  indeed  she  had  some  little  right  to  have,  one  was  forced 
to  admit,  after  hearing  her  stories.  "And  could  you  be- 
lieve that  after  a  man  is  dead  he  should  be  seen  again  as 
if  he  were  alive  ?  "  said  the  niece.  "  My  aunt  is  so  sure, 
so  sure  she  have  seen  such ;  also  my  aunt's  sister,  they 
did  both  did  see  him." 

At  one  time  the  two  sisters  hired  a  house  in  Bergen,  and 
lived  together.  In  one  of  the  upper  halls  stood  a  small 
trunk,  which  had  been  left  there  by  a  sailor,  in  payment 
of  a  debt  he  had  owed  to  the  owner  of  the  house.  One 
day,  in  broad  daylight,  there  suddenly  appeared,  before 
the  younger  sister,  the  shape  of  a  man  in  sailor's  dress. 
He  walked  toward  her,  holding  out  a  paper.  She  spoke  to 
him  wonderingly,  asking  what  he  wanted.  At  the  sound 
of  her  voice  he  vanished  into  thin  air.  She  fainted,  and 
was  for  some  weeks  seriously  ill.  A  few  months  later,  the 
same  figure  appeared  in  the  bedroom  of  the  eldest  sister 
(the  old  lady  who  told  these  stories).  He  came  in  the 
night,  and  approached  her  bed  holding  out  a  white  paper 
in  his  hands.  "  My  aunt  say  she  could  cut  the  shape  in 
paper  like  the  hat  he  wore  on  his  head ;  she  did  see  it  so 
plain  to-day  as  she  have  seen  it  then,  and  it  shall  be  fifty 
years  since  he  did  come  by  her  bed.  She  was  so  scared 
she  would  not  have  the  trunk  of  the  sailor  to  stand  in  the 
house  longer ;  and  after  the  trunk  had  gone  away  he  did 
come  no  more  to  their  house." 

Another  instance  of  this  ghost-seeing  was  truly  re- 
markable, and  not  so  easily  explained  by  any  freak  of 


BERGEN  DAYS.  231 

imagination.  Walking,  one  day,  in  a  public  garden,  with 
a  friend,  she  saw  coming  down  the  path  toward  them  a 
singular  old  woman  in  a  white  nightcap  and  short  white 
bedgown, — both  very  dirty.  The  old  woman  was  toss- 
ing her  arms  in  the  air,  and  behaving  so  strangely  that  she 
thought  she  must  be  drunk,  and  turned  laughingly  to  her 
friend,  about  to  say,  "  What  can  be  the  matter  with  this 
old  woman?"  when,  to  her  surprise,  she  saw  her  friend 
pale,  fainting,  read}-  to  fall  to  the  ground.  She  seized  her 
in  her  arms,  called  for  help,  and  carried  her  to  a  seat. 
On  returning  to  consciousness,  her  friend  exclaimed,  "  It 
was  my  mother  !  It  was  my  mother  !  "  The  mother  had 
been  dead  some  months,  had  always  worn  in  her  illness 
this  white  cotton  nightcap  and  short  bedgown,  and  had 
been,  it  seemed,  notoriously  untid}'. 

"  Now  my  aunt  did  never  see  that  old  woman  in  all  her 
life,"  continued  the  niece.  "  So  what  think  you  it  was,  in 
that  garden,  that  both  them  did  see  the  same  thing  at  one 
time?  And  my  aunt's  friend  she  get  so  very  sick  after 
that,  she  were  sick  in  bed  for  a  long  time.  My  aunt  will 
believe  always  she  did  see  the  mother's  ghost;  and  she 
says  she  have  seen  a  great  many  more  that  she  never  tells 
to  anybody." 

All  this  ghost-seeing  has  not  sobered  or  saddened  the 
old  lady  a  whit,  and  she  looks  the  last  person  in  the  world 
to  whom  sentimental  or  mischief-making  spirits  would  be 
likely  to  address  themselves :  but  there  is  certainly  some- 
thing uncannv,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  in  these  experiences 
of  hers. 

One  of  the  most  novel  pleasures  in  Bergen  is  old-silver 
hunting.  There  are  shops  where  old  silver  is  to  be  bought 
in  abundance  and  at  dear  prices :  old  belts,  rings,  slides, 
buttons,  brooches,  spoons,  of  quaint  and  fantastic  styles, 
some  of  them  hundreds  of  years  old.  But  the  connoisseur 
in  old-silver  hunting  will  not  confine  his  search  for  treas- 
ures to  the  large  shops  on  the  thoroughfares.  He  will 
roam  the  city,  keeping  a  sharp  eye  for  little  boxes  tucked 
up  on  walls  of  houses,  far  down  narrow  lanes  and  by-ways, 
—  little  boxes  with  glass  sides,  and  a  silver  spoon  or  two, 
or  an  old  buckle  or  brooch,  shining  through.  This  is  the 
sign  that  somewhere  in  that  house  he  will  come  on  a  fam- 
ily that  has  tucked  away  in  some  closet  a  little  box  of  old 


232        NORWAY,   DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

silver  that  they  will  sell.  Often  they  are  workers  in  silver 
in  a  small  way  ;  have  a  counter  in  the  front  parlor,  and  a 
tiny  work-room  opening  out  behind,  where  they  make  thin 
silver  spoons  with  twisted  handles,  and  brooches  with  dan- 
gling disks  and  crosses,  such  as  all  the  peasant  women 
wear  to-day,  and  a  hundred  years  hence  their  grandchildren 
will  be  selling  to  English  and  American  travellers  as  "  old 
silver."  The  next  century,  however,  will  not  gather  such 
treasures  as  this  one ;  there  is  no  modern  silver  to  com- 
pare with  the  ancient.  It  is  marvellous  to  see  what  a 
wealth  of  silver  the  old  Norwegians  wore :  buckles  and 
belts  which  are  heavy,  buttons  which  weigh  down  an}' 
cloak,  and  rings  under  which  nineteenth-century  fingers, 
and  even  thumbs,  would  ache.  And  the  farther  back  we 
go  the  weightier  become  the  ornaments.  In  the  Museum 
of  Northern  Antiquities  in  Copenhagen  are  necklaces  of 
solid  gold,  which  it  seems  certain  that  noble  Norwegian 
women  wore  in  King  Olaf  s  time,  —  necklaces  in  shape  of  a 
single  snake,  coiled,  so  heavy  that  they  are  not  easily  lifted 
in  one  hand  ;  bracelets,  also  of  the  same  snake  shape,  which 
a  modern  wrist  could  not  wear  half  an  hour  without  pain. 
In  these  out-of-the-way  houses  where  old  silver  is  to  be 
bought  one  sees  often  picturesque  sights.  Climbing  up  a 
narrow  stairwa}-,  perhaps  two,  you  find  a  door  with  the 
upper  half  glass,  through  which  you  look  instantly  into  the 
bosom  of  the  family, — children  playing,  old  ladies  knitting, 
women  cooking  ;  it  seems  the  last  place  in  the  world  to  come 
shopping ;  but  at  the  first  glimpse  of  the  foreign  face  and 
dress  through  the  window,  somebody  springs  to  open  the 
door.  They  know  at  once  what  it  means.  You  want  no 
interpreter  to  carry  on  your  trade  :  the  words  "  old  silver" 
and  "  how  much?"  are  all  }*ou  need.  They  will  not  cheat 
you.  As  you  enter  the  room,  every  member  of  the  family 
who  is  sitting  will  rise  and  greet  you.  The  youngest  child 
will  make  its  little  bow  or  courtesy.  The  box  of  old  silver 
will  be  brought  out  and  emptied  on  a  table,  and  you  may 
examine  its  miscellany  as  long  as  you  like.  If  an  article 
pleases  you,  and  you  ask  its  price,  it  is  taken  into  the 
work-room  to  be  weighed  ;  a  few  mysterious  Norsk  words 
come  back  from  the  weigher,  and  the  price  is  fixed.  If 
you  hesitate  at  the  sum,  they  will  lower  it  if  they  can  ;  if 
not,  they  will  await  your  departure  quietly,  with  a  dignity 


BERGEN  DAYS.  233 

of  hospitable  instinct  that  would  deem  it  an  offence  to  be- 
tray any  impatience.  I  had  once  the  good  luck  to  find  in 
one  of  these  places  a  young  peasant  woman,  who  had  come 
with  her  lover  to  bargain  for  the  silver-and-gilt  crown 
without  which  no  virtuous  Bergen  bride  will  wed.  These 
crowns  are  dear,  costing  often  from  fifty  to  a  hundred 
dollars.  Sometimes  they  are  hired  for  the  occasion  ;  but 
well-to-do  families  have  pride  in  possessing  a  crown  which 
is  handed  down  and  worn  by  generation  after  generation. 
These  lovers  were  evidently  not  of  the  rich  class :  they 
wore  the  plainest  of  clothes,  and  it  was  easy  to  see  that 
the  prices  of  the  crowns  disquieted  them.  I  made  signs 
to  the  girl  to  try  one  of  them  on.  She  laughed,  blushed, 
and  shook  her  head.  I  pressed  my  entreaties  as  well  as  I 
could,  being  dumb;  but  "Oh,  do!"  is  intelligible  in  all 
languages,  if  it  is  enforced  by  gesture  and  appealing  look. 
The  old  man  who  had  the  silver  to  sell  also  warmly  sec- 
onded my  request,  lifted  the  crown  himself,  and  set  it  on 
the  girl's  head.  Turning  redder  and  redder,  she  cried, 
"  Ne,  ne!"  but  did  not  resist;  and  once  the  crown  was 
on  her  head  she  could  not  leave  off  looking  at  herself  in 
the  glass.  It  was  a  very  pretty  bit  of  human  nature. 
The  lover  stole  up  close  behind  her,  shy,  but  glowing 
with  emotion,  reached  up,  and  just  touched  the  crown 
timidly  with  one  finger:  so  alike  are  men  in  love  all 
the  world  over  and  all  time  through.  The  look  that 
man's  face  wore  has  been  seen  by  the  eyes  of  every  wife 
since  the  beginning  of  Eden,  and  it  will  last  the  world  out. 
I  slipped  away,  and  left  them  standing  before  the  glass, 
the  whole  family  crowding  around  with  a  chorus  of  approv- 
ing and  flattering  exclamations.  Much  I  fear  she  could 
not  afford  M  buy  the  crown,  however.  There  was  a  hope- 
less regret  in  her  pretty  blue  eyes.  As  I  left  the  house  I 
stepped  on  juniper  twigs  at  the  very  next  door ;  the  side- 
walk and  the  street  were  strewn  thick  with  them,  the  sym- 
bol of  death  either  in  that  home  or  among  its  friends. 
This  is  one  of  the  most  simple  and  touching  of  the  Norwe- 
gian customs :  how  much  finer  in  instinct  and  significance 
than  the  gloomy  streamer  of  black  crape  used  by  the  civili- 
zation calling  itself  superior ! 

The  street  was  full  of  men  and  women  going  to  and  from 
the  marketplace  :  women  with  big  wooden  firkins  strapped 


234        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

on  their  backs,  and  a  firkin  under  each  arm  (these  firkins 
were  full  of  milk,  and  the  women  think  nothing  of  bringing 
them  in  that  way  five  or  six  miles) ;  men  with  big  sacks 
of  vegetables  strapped  on  in  the  same  way,  one  above 
another,  almost  as  high  as  their  heads.  One  little  girl, 
not  nine  years  old,  bore  a  huge  basket  of  green  moss, 
.bigger  than  herself,  lashed  on  her  fragile  shoulders.  The 
'better  class  brought  their  things  in  little  two -wheeled 
carts,  they  themselves  mounted  up  on  top  of  sacks,  firkins, 
and  all ;  or,  if  the  cart  were  too  full,  plodding  along  on 
foot  by  its  side,  just  as  bent  as  those  who  were  carrying 
loads  on  their  back.  A  Bergen  peasant  man  or  woman 
who  stands  upright  is  a  rare  thing  to  see.  The  long  habit 
of  carrying  burdens  on  the  back  has  given  them  a  chronic 
stoop,  which  makes  them  all  look  far  older  than  they  are. 

The  sidewalks  were  lined  with  gay  displays  of  fruit, 
flowers,  and  wooden  utensils.  Prettiest  among  these  last 
were  the  bright  wooden  trunks  and  boxes  which  no  Nor- 
wegian peasant  will  be  without.  The  trunks  are  painted 
bright  scarlet,  with  bands  and  stripes  of  gay  colors  ;  small 
boxes  to  be  carried  in  the  hand,  called  tines  (pronounced 
teeners) ,  are  charming.  They  are  oval,  with  a  high  perch 
at  each  end  like  a  squirrel  trap ;  are  painted  bright  red, 
with  wreaths  of  gay  flowers  on  them,  and  mottoes  such  as 
"Not  in  every  man's  garden  can  such  flowers  grow,"  or, 
"  A  basket  filled  by  love  is  light  to  carry."  Bowls,  wooden 
plates,  and  drinkiug-vessels,  all  of  wood,  are  also  painted 
in  gay  colors  and  designs,  many  of  which  seem  to  have 
come  from  Algiers. 

Everybody  who  can  sell  anything,  even  the  smallest 
thing,  runs,  or  stands,  or  squats  in  the  Bergen  streets  to 
sell  it.  Even  spaces  under  high  doorsteps  are  apparently 
rented  for  shops,  rigged  up  with  a  sort  of  door,  and  old 
women  sit  crouching  in  them,  selling  blueberries  and  dark 
bread.  One  man,  clad  in  sheepskin  that  looked  a  hundred 
years  old,  I  saw  trying  to  sell  a  bit  of  sheepskin  nearly  as 
old  as  that  he  was  wearing ;  another  had  a  basket  with 
thi-ee  bunches  of  wild  monkshood,  pink  spiraea,  and  blue 
larkspur,  and  one  small  saucer  full  of  wild  strawberries ; 
boys  carrying  one  pot  with  a  plant  growing  in  it,  or  a  tub 
of  sour  milk,  or  a  string  of  onions,  or  bunch  of  juniper 
boughs  ;  women  sitting  on  a  small  butter- tub  upside  down, 


BERGEN  DAYS.  235 

their  butter  waiting  sale  around  them  in  tubs  or  bits  of 
newspaper,  they  knitting  for  dear  life,  or  sewing  patches 
on  ragged  garments ;  ocher  groups  of  women  sitting  flat 
on  the  stones,  surrounded  by  piles  of  juniper,  inoss,  green 
heath,  and  wreaths  made  of  kimii-kinnick  vines,  green 
moss,  and  yellow  flowers.  These  last  were  for  graves. 
The  whole  expression  of  the  scene  was  of  dogged  and 
indomitable  thriftiness,  put  to  its  last  wits  to  turn  a  penny 
and  squeeze  out  a  living.  Yet  nobody  appeared  discon- 
tented ;  the  women  looked  friendly,  as  I  passed,  and  smiled 
as  they  saw  me  taking  out  my  note-book  to  write  them 
down. 

The  Bergen  fish-market  is  something  worth  seeing.  It 
is  n't  a  market  at  aU ;  or  rather  it  is  a  hundred  markets 
afloat  and  bobbing  on  water,  a  hundred  or  more  little 
boats  all  crowded  in  together  in  an  armlet  of  the  sea 
breaking  up  between  two  quays.  To  see  the  best  of  it 
one  must  be  there  betimes  in  the  morning,  not  later  than 
seven.  The  quays  will  be  lined  with  women,  each  woman 
carrying  a  tin  coal-scuttle  on  her  arm,  to  take  home  her 
fish  in.  From  every  direction  women  are  coming  running 
with  tin  scuttles  swinging  on  their  arms ;  in  Bergen,  fish 
is  never  carried  in  any  other  way.  The  narrow  span  of 
water  between  the  quays  is  packed  as  close  as  it  can  be 
with  little  boats  shooting  among  the  sloops  and  jagts,  all 
pushing  up  to  the  wharf.  The  steps  leading  down  to  the 
water  are  crowded  with  gesticulating  women ;  screaming 
and  gesticulating  women  hang  over  the  railings  above, 
beckoning  to  the  fishermen,  calling  to  them,  reaching  over 
and  dealing  them  sharp  whacks  with  their  tin  scuttles,  if 
they  do  not  reply.  "Fisherman!  I  say,  Fisherman  !  Do 
you  hear  me  or  not?"  the}-  shout.  Then  they  point  to 
one  particular  fish,  and  insist  on  having  it  handed  up  to 
them  to  examine  ;  if  it  does  not  please  them,  they  fling  it 
down  with  a  jerk,  and  ask  for  another.  The  boats  were 
full  of  fish  :  silver-skinned  herring,  mackerel,  salmon,  eels, 
and  a  small  fish  like  a  perch,  but  of  a  gorgeous  dark  red 
color ;  others  vermilion  and  white,  or  iridescent  opal,  blue, 
and  black  ;  many  of  them  writhing  in  death,  and  changing 
color  each  second.  Every  few  minutes  a  new  boat  would 
appear  darting  in,  wriggling  its  way  where  it  had  seemed 
not  one  boat  more  could  come  ;  then  a  rush  of  the  women 


236        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

to  see  what  the  new  boat  had  brought,  a  fresh  outburst  of 
screams  and  gesticulations  ;  then  a  lull  and  a  sinking  back 
to  the  noisy  monotone  of  the  previous  chaffering.  Some 
of  the  boats  were  rowed  by  women, —  splendid  creatures, 
in  gay  red  bodices  and  white  head-dresses,  standing  with 
one  foot  on  the  seat,  and  sculling  their  little  craft  in  and 
out,  dexterously  shoving  everybody  to  make  way. 

On  the  wharf  were  a  few  dealers  with  stands  and  baskets 
of  fish;  these  were  for  the  poorer  people.  "Fish  that 
have  died  do  be  to  be  brought  there,"  said  my  guide,  with  a 
shudder  and  an  expressive  grimace,  "for  very  little  money ; 
it  is  the  poor  that  take."  Here  were  also  great  tubs  of 
squirming  eels,  alive  in  every  inch  from  tip  to  tip.  "  Too 
small  to  cook,"  said  one  woman,  eying  them  contemptu- 
ously;  and  in  a  twinkling  she  thrust  her  arm  into  the 
squirming  mass,  grasped  a  dozen  or  more  at  once,  lifted 
them  out  and  flirted  them  into  the  seller's  face,  then  let- 
ting them  fall  back  with  a  splash  into  the  tub,  "  H'm, 
pretty  eels  those  are!"  she  said.  "Put  them  back  into 
the  water  with  their  mothers :  "  at  which  a  great  laugh 
went  up,  and  the  seller  muttered  something  angrily  which 
my  guide  would  not  translate  for  me. 

On  our  way  home  I  stopped  to  look  at  a  group  of  peas- 
ant women  in  gay  costumes.  Two  of  them  were  from  the 
Hardanger  country,  and  wore  the  beautiful  white  head- 
dress peculiar  to  that  region :  a  large  triangular  piece  of 
fine  crimped  dimity  pinned  as  closely  as  a  Quaker  cap 
around  the  face ;  the  two  corners  then  rolled  under  and 
carried  back  over  a  wooden  frame  projecting  several  inches 
on  each  side  the  head ;  the  central  point  hanging  down 
behind,  over  the  shoulders,  —  by  far  the  most  picturesque 
of  all  the  Norwegian  head-dresses.  A  gentleman  passing 
by,  seeing  my  interest  in  these  peasant  dresses,  spoke  to 
the  friend  who  was  with  me,  whom  he  knew  slightly,  and 
said  that  if  the  American  lady  would  like  to  examine  one 
of  those  peasant  costumes  he  had  one  which  he  would  be 
happy  to  show  to  me. 

The  incident  is  worth  mentioning  as  a  fair  illustration 
of  the  quick,  ready,  and  cordial  good-will  of  which  Nor- 
wegians are  full.  Is  there  any  other  country  in  the  world 
where  a  man  would  take  that  'sort  and  amount  of  trouble 
for  a  chance  traveller,  of  whom  he  knew  nothing  ? 


BERGEN  DAYS.  237 

This  Norwegian  led  us  to  his  house,  and  opened  two 
boxes  in  which  were  put  away  the  clothes  of  his  wife,  who 
had  been  dead  two  years.  This  peasant  costume  which 
he  showed  to  us  she  had  had  made  to  wear  to  the  last  ball 
she  had  attended.  It  was  a  beautiful  costume ;  strictly 
national  and  characteristic,  and  made  of  exquisite  mate- 
rials. The  belt  was  of  silver-gilded  links,  with  jewels  set 
in  them  ;  the  buttons  for  wrists  and  throat  of  the  white 
blouse  were  of  solid  silver,  with  gold  Maltese  crosses 
hanging  from  them ;  the  brooches  and  vest  ornaments 
the  same ;  the  stomacher  of  velvet,  embroidered  thick 
with  beads  and  gold ;  the  long  white  apron  with  broad 
lace  let  in.  All  were  rich  and  beautiful.  It  was.  strange 
to  see  the  dead  woman's  adornments  thus  brought  out 
for  a  stranger  to  admire ;  but  it  was  done  with  such 
simplicity  and  kindliness  that  it  was  only  touching,  as  no 
shadow  of  disrespect  was  in  it.  I  felt  instantly,  like  a 
friend,  reverent  toward  the  relics  of  the  woman  I  had 
never  seen. 

One  of  our  pleasantest  Bergen  days  was  a  day  that 
wound  up  with  a  sunset  picnic  on  the  banks  of  a  stra}'  bit 
of  sea,  which  had  gone  so  far  on  its  narrow  roadway  east, 
among  hill  and  meadow  and  rock,  that  it  was  like  an 
inland  lake  ;  and  the  track  by  which  its  tides  slipped  back 
and  forth  looked  at  sunset  like  little  more  than  a  sunbeam, 
broader  and  brighter  than  the  rest  which  were  slanting 
across.  "We  had  come  to  it  by  several  miles'  driving  to 
the  north  and  east,  over  steep  and  stony  hills,  up  which 
the  road  wound  in  loops,  zigzagging  back  and  forth,  with 
superb  views  out  seaward  at  every  turn ;  at  the  top,  another 
great  sweep  of  view  away  from  the  sea,  past  a  desolate  lake 
and  stony  moor,  to  green  hills  and  white  mountains  in  the 
east.  We  seemed  above  everything  except  the  snow- 
topped  peaks.  At  our  feet,  to  the  west,  lay  the  little 
sunny  fjord ;  green  meadows  and  trees  and  a  handful  of 
houses  around  it :  daisies  and  clover  and  tangles  of  poten- 
tilla  by  the  roadside  ;  clumps  of  ragged  robin  also,  which 
goes  better  named  in  Norway,  being  called  "  silken  blos- 
som ; "  mountain  ash,  larch,  maple,  and  ash  trees  ;  bowl- 
ders of  granite  covered  with  mosses  and  lichens,  bedded  on 
every  side,  — it  was  as  winning  a  spot  as  sun  and  sea  and 
summer  could  make  anywhere.  On  the  edge  of  the  fjord, 


238        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY. 

lifted  a  little  above  it,  as  on  a  terrace,  was  a  small  white 
cottage,  with  a  bit  of  garden,  enclosed  by  white  palings, 
running  close  to  the  water.  Roses,  southernwood,  cur- 
rants, lilacs,  cherry-trees,  potatoes,  and  primroses  filled 
it  full.  We  leaned  over  the  paling  and  looked.  An  old 
woman,  with  knitting  in  her  hand,  came  quickly  out,  and 
begged  us  to  come  in  and  take  some  flowers.  No  sooner 
had  we  entered  the  garden  than  a  second  old  woman  came 
hurrying  with  scissors  to  cut  the  flowers  ;  and  in  a  second 
more  a  third  old  woman  with  a  basket  to  hold  them.  It 
was  not  easy  to  sta}-  their  hands.  Then,  nothing  would 
do  but  we  must  go  into  the  house  and  sit  down,  and  see 
the  brothers  :  two  old  men,  one  a  clergyman,  the  other  stone 
blind.  "  I  can  English  read  in  my  New  Testament,"  said 
the  clergyman,  "  but  I  cannot  understand."  "  Yes,  to  be 
sure,"  said  the  blind  brother,  echoing  him.  And  it  was 
soon  evident  to  us  that  it  was  not  only  sight  of  which  the 
old  man  had  been  bereft ;  his  wits  were  gone  too ;  all  that 
he  could  do  now  was  to  echo  in  gentle  iteration  every  word 
that  his  brother  or  sisters  said.  "Yes,  to  be  sure,"  was 
his  instantaneous  comment  on  every  word  spoken.  "I 
think  they  are  all  just  a  little  crazy.  I  am  more  happy 
now  that  we  are  away,"  said  my  friend,  as  we  departed 
with  our  roses.  "  I  do  know  I  have  heard  that  to  be 
crazy  is  in  that  family."  Crazy  or  not,  they  were  a  very 
happy  family  on  that  sunny  terrace,  and  sane  enough  to 
have  chosen  the  loveliest  spot  to  live  in  within  ten  miles 
of  Bergen. 

Another  of  our  memorable  Bergen  days  was  marked  by 
a  true  Norwegian  dinner  in  a  simple  Bergen  home.  "The 
carriage  that  shall  take  you  will  come  at  six,"  the  hostess 
had  said.  Punctual  to  the  hour  it  came  ;  red-cheeked  Nils 
and  the  cheery  little  ponies.  On  the  threshold  we  were 
met  by  the  host  and  hostess,  both  saying,  "  Welcome." 
As  soon  as  we  took  our  seats  at  table  a  toast  was  offered  : 
"Welcome  to  the  table"  (WelJcommen  lilbords).  The 
meal  was,  as  we  had  requested,  a  simple  Norwegian  din- 
ner. First,  a  soup,  with  balls  made  of  chicken  :  the  meat 
scraped  fine  while  it  is  raw  ;  then  pounded  to  a  paste  with 
cream  in  a  mai'ble  mortar,  the  cream  added  drop  by  drop, 
as  oil  is  added  to  salad  dressing  ;  this,  delicately  seasoned, 
nuuU'  into  small  round  balls  and  cooked  in  the  boiling 


BERGEN  DAYS.  239 

soup,  bad  a  delicious  flavor,  and  a  consistency  which  baffled 
all  our  conjecture.  Next  came  salmon,  garnished  with 
shreds  of  cucumber,  and  with  clear  melted  butter  for  sauce. 
Next,  chickens  stuffed  tight  with  green  parsley,  and  boiled  ; 
with  these  were  brought  vegetables,  raspberry  jam,  and 
stewed  plums,  all  delicious.  Next,  a  light  omelet,  baked 
in  a  low  oval  tin  pan,  in  which  it  was  brought  to  the  table, 
the  pan  concealed  in  a  frame  of  stiff  white  dimity  with  a 
broad  frill  embroidered  in  red.  Cheese  and  many  other 
dishes  are  served  in  this  way  in  Norway,  adorned  with 
petticoats,  or  frills  of  embroidered  white  stuffs.  With 
this  omelet  were  eaten  cherry  sweetmeats,  with  which  had 
been  cooked  all  the  kernels  from  the  cracked  stones,  giving 
a  rare  flavor  and  richness  to  the  syrup.  After  this,  nuts, 
coffee,  and  cordials.  When  the  dinner  was  over,  the  host 
and  the  hostess  stood  in  the  doorway,  one  on  either  hand ; 
as  we  passed  between  them,  they  bowed  to  each  one,  say- 
ing, ''God  be  with  you."  It  is  the  custom  of  each  guest 
to  say, ' '  Takfur  marten  "  (  "  Thanks  for  the  meal ") .  After 
dinner  our  hostess  played  for  us  Norwegian  airs,  wild  and 
tender,  and  at  ten  o'clock  came  Nils  and  the  ponies  to 
take  us  home. 

The  next  day  the  jagts  came  in,  a  sight  fine  enough  to 
stir  one's  blood ;  ten  of  them  sailing  into  harbor  in  line, 
the  same  as  the}'  sailed  in  Olaf 's  day,  —  their  prows  curl- 
ing upward,  as  if  they  stepped  high  on  the  waters  from 
pride,  and  their  single  great  square  sail  set  on  their  one 
ma'st  doggedly  across  their  decks,  as  if  the}*  could  compel 
winds'  courses  to  suit  them.  The}*  had  been  only  four 
days  running  down  from  Heligoland,  ahead  of  a  fierce 
north  wind,  which  had  not  so  much  as  drawn  breath  even 
night  or  day,  but  blown  them  down  flying.  A  rare  piece 
of  luck  for  the  jagts  to  hit  such  a  wind  as  that :  when  the 
wind  faces  them,  they  are  sometimes  four  weeks  on  the 
way  ;  for  their  one  great  stolid  sail  amidships,  which  is  all 
very  well  with  the  wind  behind  it,  is  no  kind  of  a  sail  to 
tack  with,  or  to  make  headway  on  a  quartering  wind.  The 
Vikings  must  have  had  a  hard  time  of  it,  often,  mano3U- 
vring  their  stately  craft  in  Mediterranean  squalls,  and  in 
the  Bay  of  Biscay.  One  of  these  jagts  bore  a  fine  scarlet 
silk  flag  with  a  yellow  crown  on  it.  It  was  called  the  king's 
jagt,  because,  a  year  ago,  the  king  had  visited  it,  spent 


240        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

some  time  on  board,  and  afterward  sent  this  flag  as  a  gift 
to  the  captain.  We  hired  an  old  boatman  to  row  us  along- 
side, and  clambered  on  board  up  a  swinging  ladder ;  then 
up  another  ladder,  still  longer,  to  the  top  of  the  square 
mountain  of  salt  codfish  which  filled  three  fourths  of  the 
deck.  Most  of  it  was  to  go  to  Spain,  the  skipper  said,  — 
to  Spain  and  the  Mediterranean.  "  It  was  well  for  Nor- 
way that  there  were  so  many  Roman  Catholic  Countries  :" 
no  danger  of  an  overstock  of  the  fish  market  in  Europe  so 
long  as  good  Catholics  keep  Lent  every  spring  and  Fridays 
all  the  year  round.  Jf  the  Catholics  were  to  be  converted, 
Norway  would  be  plunged  into  misery.  One  tenth  of  her 
whole  population  live  off,  if  not  on,  fish;  the  value  of  the 
fisheries  is  reckoned  at  over  ten  millions  of  dollars  a  year. 
Not  a  fish  goes  free  on  the  Norway  coast.  Even  the  shark 
has  to  give  up  his  liver  for  oil,  from  which  item  alone  the 
Norwegians  get  about  half  a  million  of  dollars  yearly. 
The  herring,  shining,  silvery,  slippery  fellows  that  they 
are,  are  the  aristocrats  of  the  Norway  waters ;  the  cod  is 
stupid,  stays  quietly  at  home  on  his  banks,  breeds  and 
multiplies,  and  waits  to  be  caught  year  after  j*ear  in  the 
same  places.  But  the  herring  shoals  are  off  and  on,  at 
capricious  pleasure,  now  here,  now  there,  and  to  be 
watched  for  with  unremitting  vigilance.  Kings'  squadrons 
might  come  to  Norway  with  less  attention  than  is  given  to 
them.  Flash,  flash,  flash,  by  electric  telegraph  from  point 
to  point  all  along  the  Norway  shore,  is  sent  like  lightning 
the  news  of  the  arrival  of  their  majesties  the  herring. 

Our  boatman  rowed  us  across  the  harbor  to  the  landing 
at  the  foot  of  the  market-place.  Climbing  the  steep  hill, 
so  steep  that  the  roadway  for  vehicles  zigzags  five  times 
across  it  between  bottom  and  top,  we  looked  back.  Four 
more  of  the  jagts  were  coming  in,  —  colors  flying,  sails 
taut ;  six  more  were  in  sight,  it  was  said,  farther  out  in 
the  fjord.  The  harbor  was  crowded  with  masts  ;  the  ga}-- 
colored  houses  and  red  roofs  and  gables  of  the  city  on  the 
east  side  of  the  harbor  stood  out  in  relief  against  the  gray, 
stony  background  of  the  high  hill  to  which  they  cling. 
The  jagts  seem  to  change  the  atmosphere  of  the  whole 
scene,  and  set  it  three  centuries  back.  In  the  sunset  light, 
they  looked  as  fine  and  fierce  as  if  they  had  just  brought 
Sigurd  home  from  Jerusalem. 


BERGEN  DAYS.  241 

Another  memorable  Bergen  day  was  a  day  at  Valestrand, 
on  the  island  Osteroen.  Valestrand  is  a  farm  which  has 
been  in  the  possession  of  Ole  Bull's  family  for  several  gen- 
erations, and  is  still  in  the  possession  of  Ole  Bull's  eldest 
son.  It  lies  two  hours'  sail  north  from  Bergen,  —  two 
hours,  or  four  according  to  the  number  of  lighters  loaded 
with  cotton  bales,  wood,  etc.,  which  the  steamer  picks  up 
to  draw.  Steamers  on  Norway  fjords  are  like  country  gen- 
tlemen who  go  into  the  cit\"  every  day  and  come  out  at 
night,  always  doing  unexpected  errands  for  people  along 
the  road.  No  steamer  captain  going  out  from  Bergen  may 
say  how  many  times  he  will  stop  on  his  journey,  or  at  what 
hour  he  will  reach  its  end  :  all  of  which  is  clear  profit  for 
the  steamboat  company,  no  doubt,  but  is  worrying  to  trav- 
ellers ;  especially  to  those  who  leave  Bergen  of  a  morning  at 
seven,  as  we  did,  invited  to  breakfast  at  Valestrand  at  nine, 
and  do  not  see  Osteroen's  shore  till  near  eleven.  People 
who  were  not  going  to  Valestrand  to  breakfast  that  day 
were  eating  breakfast  on  board,  all  around  us  :  poor  people 
eating  cracknels  and  dry  bread  out  of  baskets  ;  well-to-do 
people  eating  sausage,  eggs,  and  coffee,  neatl}'  served  at 
little  tables  on  deck,  and  all  prepared  in  a  tiny  coop  below- 
stairs.  hardly  big  enough  for  one  person  to  turn  around  in. 
It  is  an  enticing  sight  always  for  hungry  people  to  see 
eating  going  on  ;  up  to  a  certain  point  it  whets  appetite, 
but  beyond  that  it  is  both  insult  and  injury. 

The  harbor  of  Valestrand  is  a  tiny  amphitheatre  of  shal- 
low water.  Xo  big  craft  can  get  to  the  shore.  As  the 
steamer  comes  to  a  stop  opposite  it,  the  old  home  of  Ole 
Bull  is  seen  on  a  slope  at  the  head  of  the  harbor,  looking 
brightly  out  over  a  bower  of  foliage  to  the  southern  sun. 
It  appears  to  be  close  to  the  water,  but,  on  landing,  one 
discovers  that  he  is  still  a  half  hour's  walk  away  from  it. 
A  little  pathway  of  mossy  stones,  past  an  old  boat-house, 
on  whose  thatched  roof  flowering  grasses  and  a  young 
birch-tree  were  waving,  leads  up  from  the  water  to  the 
one  road  on  the  island.  Wild  pansies,  white  clover,  and 
dandelions,  tinkling  water  among  ferns  and  mosses,  along 
the  roadsides,  made  the  wa}*  beautiful ;  low  hills  rose  on 
either  side,  softly  wooded  with  firs  and  birches  feathery 
as  plumes  ;  in  the  meadows,  peasant  men  and  women  mak- 
ing hay,  —  the  women  in  red  jackets  and  white  blouses,  a 
16 


242        NORWAY,   DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

delight  to  the  eye.  Just  in  front  of  the  house  is  a  small, 
darkly  shaded  lake,  in  which  there  is  a  mysterious  floating 
island,  which  moves  up  and  down  at  pleasure,  changing 
its  moorings  often. 

The  house  is  wooden,  and  painted  of  a  pale  flesh-color. 
The  architecture  is  of  the  light  and  fantastic  order  of  which 
so  much  is  to  be  seen  in  Norway,  —  the  instinctive  reaction 
of  the  Norwegian  against  the  sharp,  angular,  severe  lines 
of  his  rock-made,  rock-bound  country  ;  and  it  is  vindicated 
by  the  fact  that  fantastic  carvings,  which  would  look  trivial 
and  impertinent  on  houses  in  countries  where  Nature  her- 
self had  done  more  decorating,  seem  here  pleasing  and  in 
place.  Before  the  house  were  clumps  of  rose-bushes  in 
blossom,  and  great  circles  of  blazing  yellow  eschscholtzias. 
In  honor  of  our  arrival,  every  room  had  been  decorated 
with  flowers  and  ferns ;  and  clumps  of  wild  pansies  in 
bloom  had  been  set  along  the  steps  to  the  porch.  Ole 
Bull's  own  chamber  and  music-room  are  superb  rooms, 
finished  in  yellow  pine,  with  rows  of  twisted  and  carved 
pillars,  and  carved  cornices  and  beams  and  panels,  all 
done  by  Norwegian  workmen. 

Valestrand  was  his  home  for  many  years,  abandoned 
only  when  he  found  one  still  more  beautiful  on  the  island 
of  Lysoen,  sixteen  miles  southwest  of  Bergen. 

A  Norwegian  supper  of  trout  freshly  caught,  and  smoth- 
ered in  cream,  croquettes,  salad,  strawberries,  goafs-milk 
cheese,  with  fine-flavored  gooseberry  wine,  served  by  a 
Norwegian  maid  in  a  white-winged  head-dress,  scarlet 
jacket,  and  stomacher  of  gay  beads,  closed  our  day.  As 
we  walked  back  to  the  little '  moss-grown  wharf,  we  found 
two  peasants  taking  trout  from  the  brook.  Just  where  it 
dashed  foaming  under  a  little  foot-bridge,  a  stake-lined 
box  trap  had  been  plunged  deep  in  the  water.  As  we 
were  passing,  the  men  lifted  it  out,  dripping,  ten  superb 
trout  dashing  about  wildly  in  it,  in  terror  and  pain  ;  the 
scarlet  spots  on  their  sides  shone  like  garnet  crystals  in 
the  sun,  as  the  men  emptied  them  on  the  ground,  and 
killed  them,  one  by  one,  by  knocking  their  heads  against 
a  stone  with  a  sharp,  quick  stroke,  which  could  not  have 
been  so  cruel  as  it  looked. 

On  our  way  back  to  Bergen  we  passed  several  little  row- 
boats,  creeping  slowly  along,  loaded  high  with  juniper 


BERGEN  DAYS.  243 

boughs.  They  looked  like  little  green  islands  broken  loose 
from  their  places  and  drifting  out  to  sea. 

"  For  somebody's  sorrow  !  "  we  said  thoughtfully,  as  we 
watched  them  slowly  fading  from  sight  in  the  distance ; 
but  we  did  not  dream  that  in  so  few  clays  the  green  boughs 
would  have  been  strewn  for  the  burial  of  the  beloved  mu- 
sician whose  home  we  had  just  left. 

The  day  of  the  burial  of  Ole  Bull  is  a  day  that  will  never 
be  forgotten  in  Bergen.  From  mothers  to  children  and  to 
children's  children  will  go  down  the  stor}*  of  the  day  when 
from  every  house  in  Bergen  Norway's  flag  floated  at  half- 
mast,  because  Ole  Bull  was  dead,  and  the  streets  of  Bergen 
for  two  miles  —  all  the  way  from  the  quay  to  the  cem- 
etery—  were  strewn  with  green  juniper  boughs,  for  the 
passage  of  the  procession  bearing  his  body  in  sad  triumph 
to  the  grave.  It  must  have  been  a  touching  sight.  Early 
in  the  morning  a  steamer  had  gone  down  to  Lysoen  to 
receive  the  body.  This  steamer  on  entering  the  Bergen 
Fjord  was  met  by  fifteen  others,  all  draped  in  black,  to 
act  as  its  convoy.  As  the  fleet  approached  the  harbor, 
guns  fired  from  the  fort,  and  answered  by  the  steamers, 
made  peals  of  echoes  rolling  awa}*  gloriously  among  the 
hills.  The  harbor  was  crowded  with  shipping  from  all 
parts  of  the  world  ;  even*  vessel's  flag  was  at  half-mast. 
The  quay  was  covered  thick  with  green  juniper,  and  fes- 
toons of  green  draped  its  whole  front  to  the  very  water's 
edge.  Ever}*  shop  and  place  of  business  was  shut ;  the 
whole  population  of  the  city  stood  waiting,  silent,  reverent, 
for  the  landing  of  the  dead  bod}*  of  the  artist  who  had 
loved  Norway  even  as  well  as  he  loved  the  art  to  which 
his  heart  and  life  had  been  given.  While  the  body  was 
borne  from  the  boat  and  placed  in  the  high  catafalque,  a 
band  played  national  airs  of  his  arranging.  Young  girls 
dressed  in  black  bore  many  of  the  trophies  which  had  been 
given  to  him  in  foreign  countries.  His  gold  crown  and 
orders  were  carried  b}*  distinguished  gentlemen  of  Bergen. 
As  the  procession  passed  slowly  along,  flowers  were  show- 
ered on  the  coffin,  and  tears  were  seen  on  many  faces,  but 
the  silence  was  unbroken. 

At  the  grave,  Norway's  greatest  orator  and  poet,  Bjb'rn- 
stjerne  Bjornson,  spoke  a  few  words  of  eloquent  love  and 
admiration.  The  grave  was  made  on  a  commanding  spot 


244        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

in  the  centre  of  Bergen's  old  cemetery,  in  which  interments 
had  been  forbidden  for  many  years.  This  spot,  Powever, 
had  been  set  apart  more  than  thirty  years  ago,  *o  be  re- 
served for  the  interment  of  some  great  man.  It  bad  been 
refused  to  the  father  and  framer  of  the  Norwegian  Consti- 
tution, Christie,  whose  statue  stands  in  Bergen,  br.t  it  was 
offered  for  Ole  Bull ;  so  much  more  tenderly  does  tue  world 
love  artists  than  statesmen !  The  grave  was  lined  with 
flowers  and  juniper,  and  juniper  and  flowers  lay  thick-strewn 
on  the  ground  for  a  great  space  about.  After  the  coffin  had 
been  put  in  the  grave,  and  the  relatives  had  gone  away, 
there  was  paid  a  last  tribute  to  Ole  Bull,  —  a  tribute  more 
touching  and  of  more  worth  than  the  king's  letter,  the 
gold  crown,  all  the  orders,  and  the  flags  of  the  world  at 
half-mast ;  meaning  more  love  than  the  pine-strewn  streets 
of  the  silent  city  and  the  tears  on  its  people's  fac%;s,  —  a 
tribute  from  poor  peasants,  who  had  come  in  from  tlw  coun- 
try far  and  near,  men  who  knew  Ole  Bull's  music  b\  heart, 
who  in  their  lonely,  poverty-stricken  huts  had  beet  proud 
of  the  man  who  had  played  their  "Gamle  Norge"  before 
the  kings  of  the  earth.  These  men  were  there  by  hundreds, 
each  bringing  a  green  bough,  or  a  fern,  or  a  flower ;  they 
waited  humbly  till  all  others  had  left  the  grave,  then 
crowded  up,  and  threw  in,  each  man,  the  only  token  he  had 
been  rich  enough  to  bring.  The  grave  was  filled  to  the 
brim ;  and  it  is  not  irreverent  to  say  that  to  Ole  Bull, 
in  heaven,  there  could  come  no  gladder  memory  of  earth 
than  that  the  last  honors  paid  him  there  were  wild  leaves 
and  flowers  of  Norway,  laid  on  his  body  by  the  loving 
hands  of  Norway  peasants. 


FOUR  DAYS  WITH  SANNA. 

A  PAIR  of  eyes  too  blue  for  gra\~,  too  gray  for  blue ; 
brown  hair  as  dark  as  hair  can  be,  being  brown  and  not 
black  ;  a  face  fine  without  beauty,  gentle  but  firm  ;  a  look 
appealing,  and  yet  full  of  a  certain  steadfastness,  which 
one  can  see  would  be  changed  to  fortitude  at  once  if 
there  were  need ;  a  voice  soft,  low,  and  of  a  rich  fulness, 
in  which  even  Norwegian  sks  flow  melodiously  and 
broken  English  becomes  music,  —  this  is  a  little,  these  are 
a  few  features,  of  the  portrait  of  Sanna,  all  that  can  be 
told  to  any  one  not  knowing  Sanna  herself.  And  to  those 
who  do  know  her  it  would  not  occur  to  speak  of  the  eyes, 
or  the  hair,  or  the  shy,  brave  look :  to  speak  of  her  in  de- 
scription would  be  lost  time  and  a  half-way  impertinence  ; 
she  is  simply  "  Sanna." 

When  she  said  she  would  go  with  me  and  show  me  two 
of  the  most  beautiful  fjords  of  her  country,  her  beloved 
Norway,  I  found  no  words  in  which  to  convey  my  glad- 
ness. He  who  journeys  in  a  foreign  country  whose  lan- 
guage he  does  not  know  is  in  sorrier  plight  for  the  time 
being  than  one  born  a  deaf-mute.  Deprived  all  of  a  sudden 
of  his  two  chief  channels  of  communication  with  his  fellows, 
cut  off  in  an  hour  from  all  which  he  has  been  wont  to  gain 
through  his  ears  and  express  by  his  tongue,  there  is  no 
telling  his  abject  sense  of  helplessness.  The  more  he  has 
been  accustomed  to  free  intercourse,  exact  replies,  read}' 
compliance,  and  full  utterance  among  his  own  people,  the 
worse  off  he  feels  himself  now.  It  is  ceaseless  humiliation 
added  to  perpetual  discomfort.  And  the  more  novel  the 
country,  and  the  greater  his  eagerness  to  understand  all  lie 
sees,  the  greater  is  his  miser}- :  the  very  things  which,  if 
he  were  not  this  pitiful  deaf-mute,  would  give  him  his  best 


246        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

pleasures,  are  turned  into  his  chief  torments  ;  even  evident 
friendliness  on  the  part  of  those  he  meets  becomes  as  irri- 
tating a  misery  as  the  sound  of  waterfalls  in  the  ears  of 
Tantalus.  Nowhere  in  the  world  can  this  misery  of  un- 
willing dumbness  and  deafness  be  greater,  I  think,  than  it  is 
in  Norway.  The  evident  good-will  and  readiness  to  talk 
of  the  Norwegian  people  are  as  peculiarly  their  own  as  are 
their  gay  costumes  and  their  flower-decked  houses.  Their 
desire  to  meet  you  half-way  is  so  great  that  they  talk  on 
and  on,  in  spite  of  the  palpable  fact  that  not  one  word  of 
all  they  say  conveys  any  idea  to  your  mind  ;  and  at  last, 
when  your  despair  has  become  contagious,  and  they  accept 
the  situation  as  hopeless,  they  seize  your  hand  in  both  of 
theirs,  and  pressing  it  warmly  let  it  fall  with  a  smile  and  a 
shake  of  the  head,  which  speak  volumes  of  regret  both  for 
their  own  loss  and  for  yours. 

It  took  much  planning  to  contrive  what  we  could  best 
do  in  the  four  days  which  were  all  that  we  could  have  for 
our  journey.  The  comings  and  goings  of  steamboats  on 
the  Norway  fjords,  their  habits  in  the  matter  of  arriving  and 
departing,  the  possibilities  and  impossibilities  of  carioles, 
caleches,  peasant  carts  and  horses,  the  contingencies  and 
uncertainties  of  beds  at  inns,  —  all  these  things,  taken  to- 
gether, make  any  programme  of  journeying,  in  an}-  direction 
in  Norway,  an  aggregate  of  complications,  risks,  and  hin- 
drances enough  to  deter  any  but  the  most  indomitable  lovers 
of  Nature  and  adventure.  Long  before  it  was  decided  which 
routes  promised  us  most  between  a  Saturday  afternoon 
and  the  next  Wednesday  night,  I  had  abandoned  all  effort 
to  grapple  understandingly  with  the  problems,  and  left  the 
planning  entirely  to  my  wiser  and  more  resolute  companion. 
Each  suggestion  that  I  made  seemed  to  involve  us  in 
deeper  perplexities.  One  steamer  would  set  off  at  three 
in  the  morning  ;  another  would  arrive  at  the  same  hour  ; 
a  third  would  take  us  over  the  most  beautiful  parts  of  a 
fjord  in  the  night ;  on  a  fourth  route  nothing  in  the  way 
of  vehicles  could  be  procured,  except  the  peasant's  cai't,  a 
thing  in  which  no  human  being  not  born  a  Norwegian 
peasant  can  drive  for  half  a  day  without  being  shaken  to 
a  jehV ;  on  a  fifth  we  should  have  to  wait  three  days  for 
a  return  boat ;  on  another  it  was  unsafe  to  go  without 
having  received  beforehand  the  promise  of  a  bed,  the 


FOUR  DAYS    WITH  SANNA.  247 

accommodations  for  travellers  being  so  scanty.  The  old 
puzzle  of  the  fox  and  the  goose  and  the  corn  is  an  a  b  c  in 
comparison  with  the  dilemma  we  were  in.  At  last,  when 
I  thought  I  had  finally  arranged  a  scheme  which  would 
enable  us  to  see  two  of  the  finest  of  the  fjords  within  our 
prescribed  time,  a  scheme  which  involved  spending  a  day 
and  a  night  in  the  little  town  of  Gudvangen,  in  the  valley 
of  Nerodal,  Sanna  exclaimed,  shuddering,  "We  cannot! 
we  cannot !  The  mountains  are  over  us.  We  can  sleep 
at  Gudvangen;  but  a  whole  day?  No!  You  shall  not 
like  a  whole  day  at  Gudvangen.  The  mountains  are  so — " 
And  she  finished  her  sentence  b}*  another  shudder  and  a 
gesture  of  cowering,  which  were  more  eloquent  than  words. 
So  the  da}-  at  Gudvangen  was  given  up,  and  it  was  arranged 
that  we  were  to  wait  one  da}*  at  some  other  point  on  the 
road,  wherever  it  might  seem  good,  and  upon  no  account 
come  to  Gudvangen  for  anything  more  than  to  take  the 
steamer  away  from  it. 

The  heat  of  a  Bergen  noon  is  like  a  passing  smile  on  a 
stern  face.  It  was  cold  at  ten,  and  it  will  be  cold  again 
long  before  sunset ;  you  have  your  winter  wrap  on  your 
arm,  and  you  dare  not  be  separated  from  it,  but  the  mid- 
day glares  at  and  down  on  you,  and  makes  the  wrap 
seem  not  only  intolerable  but  incongruous.  As  we  drove 
to  the  steamer  at  twelve  o'clock,  with  fur-trimmed  wraps 
and  heavy  rugs  filling  the  front  seat  of  the  carriage,  and 
our  faces  flushed  with  heat,  I  said,  "What  an  absurd 
amount  of  wraps  for  a  midsummer  journey !  I  have  a 
mind  to  let  Nils  carry  back  this  heavy  rug." 

"  I  think  you  shall  be  very  glad  if  you  have  it,"  remarked 
Sanna.  "Oh!"  she  exclaimed  with  a  groan,  "there  is 
Bob." 

Bob  is  Sanna's  dog,  —  a  small  black  spaniel,  part  setter, 
with  a  beautiful  head  and  eye,  and  a  devotion  to  his  mis- 
tress which  lovers  might  envy.  Never,  when  in  her  pres- 
ence, does  he  remove  his  eyes  from  her  for  many  minutes. 
He  either  revolves  restlessly  about  her  like  an  alert  scout, 
or  lays  himself  down  with  a  sentry-like  expression  at  her 
feet/ 

"Oh,  what  is  to  do  with  Bob?"  she  continued,  gazing 
helplessly  at  me.  The  rascal  was  bounding  along  the 
road,  curvetting,  and  wagging  his  tail,  and  looking  up  at 


248        NORWAY,   DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

us  with  an  audacious  leer  on  his  handsome  face.  "  He  did 
understand  perfectly  that  he  should  not  come,"  said  Sanna  ; 
hearing  which,  Bob  hung  back,  behind  the  carriage. 

"  NUs  must  carry  him  back,"  I  said.  Then,  relenting, 
seeing  the  look  of  distress  on  Banna's  face,  I  added, 
"Could  we  not  take  him  with  us?" 

"Oh,  no,  it  must  be  impossible,"  she  replied.  "It  is 
for  the  lambs.  He  does  drive  them  and  frighten  them. 
He  must  stay,  but  we  shall  have  trouble." 

Fast  the  little  Norwegian  ponies  clattered  down  to  the 
wharf.  No  Bob.  As  we  went  on  board  he  was  nowhere 
to  be  seen.  Anxiously  Sauna  searched  for  him,  to  give 
him  into  Nils's  charge.  He  was  not  to  be  found.  The 
boat  began  to  move.  Still.no  Bob.  We  settled  ourselves 
comfortably ;  already  the  burdensome  rug  was  welcome. 
"  I  really  think  Bob  must  have  missed  us  in  the  crowd," 
I  said. 

"  I  do  not  know,  I  do  not  think,"  replied  Sanna,  her 
face  full  of  perplexity.  "Oh!"  with  a  cry  of  dismay. 
"He  is  here !" 

There  he  was !  Abject,  nearly  dragging  his  body  on 
the  deck  like  a  snake,  his  tail  between  his  legs,  fawning, 
cringing,  his  eyes  fixed  on  Sanna,  he  crawled  to  her  feet. 
Only  his  eyes  told  that  he  felt  any  emotion  except  remorse  ; 
they  betra}*ed  him  ;  their  expression  was  the  drollest  I 
ever  saw  on  a  dumb  creature's  face.  It  was  absurd  ;  it 
was  impossible,  incredible,  if  one  had  not  seen  it ;  as 
plainly  as  if  words  had  been  spoken,  it  avowed  the  whole 
plot,  the  distinct  exultation  in  its  success.  "  Here  I  am," 
it  said,  "  and  I  know  very  well  that  now  the  steamer  has 
begun  to  move  you  are  compelled  to  take  me  with  3*011. 
My  heart  is  nearly  broken  with  terror  and  grief  at  the 
thought  of  your  displeasure,  but  all  the  same  I  can  hardly 
contain  myself  for  delight  at  having  outwitted  .you  so  com- 
pletely." All  this  while  he  was  wriggling  closer  and  closer 
to  her  feet,  watching  her  eye,  as  a  child  watches  its  moth- 
er's, for  the  first  show  of  relenting.  Of  course  we  began 
to  laugh.  At  the  first  beginning  of  a  smile  in  Sauna's 
eyes,  he  let  his  tail  out  from  between  his  legs,  and  began 
to  flap  it  on  the  deck  ;  as  the  smile  broadened,  he  gradually 
rose  to  his  feet ;  and  by  the  time  we  had  fairly  burst  into  un- 
controlled laughter,  he  was  erect,  gambolling  around  us  like 


FOUR  DAYS   WITH  SANNA.  249 

a  kid,  and  joining  in  the  chorus  of  our  merriment  by  a  series 
of  short,  sharp  yelps  of  delight,  which,  being  interpreted, 
would  doubtless  have  been  something  like,  "  Ha,  ha ! 
Beat  'em,  and  they  're  not  going  to  thrash  me,  and  1  'm 
booked  for  the  whole  journey  now,  spite  of  fate !  Ha, 
ha  !  "  Then  he  stretched  himself  at  our  feet,  laid  his  nose 
out  flat  on  the  deck,  and  went  to  sleep  as  composedly  as  if 
he  had  been  on  the  hearth-rug  at  home ;  far  more  com- 
posedly than  he  would  had.  he  dreamed  of  the  experiences 
in  store  for  him. 

"  Poor  Bob  !  "  said  Sanna.  "  It  must  be  that  we  shall 
send  him  back  by  the  steamer."  Poor  Bob,  indeed  !  Long 
before  we  reached  our  first  landing,  Bob  was  evidently 
sea-sick.  The  beautiful  water  of  the  great  Hardanger 
Fjord  was  as  smooth  as  an  inland  lake ;  changing  from 
dark  and  translucent  green  in  the  narrowing  channels, 
where  the  bold  shores  came  so  near  together  that  we  could 
count  the  trees,  to  brilliant  and  sparkling  blue  in  the  wider 
opens.  But  little  cared  Bob  for  the  beauty  of  the  water ; 
little  did  it  comfort  him  that  the  boat  glided  as  gently  as 
is  possible  for  a  boat  to  move.  He  had  never  been  on  a 
boat  before,  and  did  not  know  it  was  smooth.  Piteously 
he  roamed  about,  from  place  to  place,  looking  off;  then 
he  would  come  and  stand  before  Sanna,  quivering  in  every 
fibre,  and  looking  up  at  her  with  sorrowful  appeal  in  his 
e}*es.  His  thoughts  were  plainly  written  in  his  countenance 
now,  as  before ;  but  nobody  could  have  had  the  heart  to 
laugh  at  him.  Poor  fellow !  He  was  not  the  first  creature 
that  has  been  bowed  down  by  the  curse  of  a  granted  prayer. 

Presently  there  came  a  new  trouble.  All  along  the 
Plardanger  Fjord  are  little  hamlets  and  villages  and  clus- 
ters of  houses,  tucked  in  in  nooks  among  rocks  and  on 
rims  of  shore  at  the  base  of  the  high,  stony  walls  of 
mountains,  and  snugged  away  at  the  heads  of  inlets. 
Many  of  these  are  places  of  summer  resort  for  the  Bergen 
people,  who  go  out  of  town  into  the  country  in  summer,  I 
fancy,  somewhat  as  the  San  Francisco  people  do,  not  to 
find  coolness,  but  to  find  warmth  ;  for  the  air  in  these 
sheltered  nooks  and  inlets  of  the  fjords  is  far  softer  than 
it  is  in  Bergen,  which  has  the  strong  sea  wind  blowing  in 
its  teeth  all  the  while.  On  Saturdays  the  steamers  for  the 
Hardanger  country  are  crowded  with  Bergen  men  going 


250        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

out  to  spend  the  Sunday  with  their  families  or  friends  who 
are  rusticating  at  these  little  villages.  At  many  of  these 
spots  there  is  no  landing  except  by  small  boats ;  and  it 
was  one  of  the  pleasantest  features  of  the  sail,  the  frequent 
pausing  of  the  steamer  off  some  such  nook,  and  the  putting 
out  of  the  row  boats  to  fetch  or  to  carry  passengers.  They 
would  row  alongside,  half  a  dozen  at  a  time,  bobbing  like 
corks,  and  the  agile  Norwegians  would  skip  in  and  out  of 
and  across  them  as  deftly  as  if  they  were  stepping  on  firm 
floor.  The  Norwegian  peasant  is  as  much  at  home  in  a 
boat  as  a  snail  in  his  shell,  —  women  as  well  as  men  ;  the}' 
row,  stand,  leap,  gesticulate,  lift  burdens,  with  only  a  rock- 
ing plank  between  their  feet  and  fathomless  water,  and 
never  seem  to  know  that  they  are  not  on  solid  ground.  In 
fact,  they  are  far  more  graceful  afloat  than  on  ground  :  on 
the  land  they  shuffle  and  walk  in  a  bent  and  toil-worn  at- 
titude, the  result  of  perpetual  carrying  of  loads  on  their 
backs  ;  but  they  bend  to  their  oars  with  ease  and  freedom, 
and  wheel  and  turn  and  shoot  and  back  their  little  skiffs 
with  a  dexterity  which  leaves  no  room  for  doubt  that  they 
can  do  anything  they  choose  on  water.  It  would  not  have 
astonished  me,  any  day,  to  see  a  Norwegian  coming  towards 
me  in  two  boats  at  once,  one  foot  in  each  boat,  walking  on 
the  water  in  them,  as  a  man  walks  on  snow  in  snow-shoes. 
I  never  did  see  it,  but  I  am  sure  they  could  do  it. 

When  these  boats  came  alongside,  Bob  peered  wistfully 
over  the  railings,  but  did  not  offer  to  stir.  The  connec- 
tion between  this  new  variety  of  water  craft  and  terra 
firma  he  did  not  comprehend.  But  at  the  first  landing 
which  we  reached,  he  gazed  for  a  moment  intently,  and 
then  bounded  forward  like  a  shot,  across  the  gangway,  in 
among  the  crowd  on  the  wharf,  in  a  twinkling. 

"  Oh  !  "  shrieked  Sanna,  "  Bob  is  on  shore  !  "  And  she 
rushed  after  him,  and  brought  him  back,  crestfallen.  But 
he  had  learned  the  trick  of  it ;  and  after  that,  his  knack 
at  disappearing  some  minutes  before  we  came  to  a  wharf — 
thereby  luring  us  into  a  temporar}7  forgetfulness  of  him 
—  and  then,  when  we  went  to  seek  him,  making  himself 
invisible  among  the  people  going  on  shore,  was  some- 
thing so  uncanny  that  my  respect  for  him  fast  deepened 
into  an  awe  which  made  an  odd  undercurrent  of  anx- 
iety, mingling  with  my  enjoyment  of  the  beauties  of  the 


FOUR  DAYS   WITH  SANNA.  251 

fjord.  It  was  strange,  while  looking  at  grand  tiers  of  hills 
rising  one  behind  the  other,  with  precipitous  fronts,  the 
nearer  ones  wooded,  the  farther  ones  bare  and  stony,  some- 
times almost  solid  rock,  walling  the  beautiful  green  and 
blue  water  as  if  it  had  been  a  way  hewn  for  it  to  pass ; 
shining  waterfalls  pouring  down  from  the  highest  summits, 
straight  as  a  beam  of  light,  into  the  fjord,  sometimes  in 
full  torrents  dazzling  bright,  sometimes  in  single  threads 
as  if  of  ravelled  cloud,  sometimes  in  a  broken  line  of 
round  disks  of  glittering  white  on  the  dark  green,  the 
course  of  the  water  in  the  intervals  between  being  marked 
only  by  a  deeper  green  and  a  sunken  line  in  the  foliage,  — 
it  was  strange,  side  b}'  side  with  the  wonder  at  all  this 
beauty,  to  be  wondering  to  one's  self  also  what  Bob  would 
do  next.  But  so  it  was  hour  by  hour,  all  of  our  way  up 
the  Hardanger  Fjord,  till  we  came,  in  the  early  twilight  at 
half-past  ten  o'clock,  to  Eide,  our  journey's  end.  The 
sun  had  set  —  if  in  a  Norway  summer  it  can  ever  be  truly 
said  to  set — two  hours  before,  and  in  its  slow  sinking  had 
turned  the  mountains,  first  pink,  then  red,  then  to  an  opal- 
ine tint,  blending  both  pink  and  red  with  silver  gray  and 
white ;  all  shifting  and  changing  so  fast  that  the  moun- 
tains themselves  seemed  to  be  quivering  beneath.  Then, 
of  a  sudden,  they  lost  color  and  turned  gray  and  dark  blue. 
Belts  and  downstretching  lines  of  snow  shone  out  sternly 
on  their  darkened  summits  ;  a  shadowy  half-moon  rose 
above  them  in  the  southeast,  and  the  strange  luminous 
night  lit  up  the  little  hamlet  of  Eide,  almost  light  like  da}-, 
as  we  landed. 

At  first  sight  Eide  looked  as  if  the  houses,  as  well  as 
the  people,  had  just  run  down  to  the  shore  to  meet  the 
boat :  from  the  front  windows  of  the  houses  one  might 
easily  look  into  the  cabin  windows  of  the  boat,  —  so 
narrow  strips  of  shore  do  the  mountain  walls  leave  some- 
times along  these  fjords,  and  such  marvellous  depth  of 
water  do  the  fjords  bring  to  the  mountains'  feet. 

"  Have  you  written  for  rooms?  Where  are  3*ou  going? 
There  is  n't  a  bed  in  Eide,"  were  the  first  words  that 
greeted  us  from  some  English  people  who  had  left  Bergen 
davs  before,  and  whom  we  never  expected  to  see  again. 
The  disappearing,  reappearing,  and  turning  up  of  one's 
travelling  acquaintances  in  Norway  is  one  of  the  distiiic- 


252        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

tive  experiences  of  the  country.  The  chief  routes  of  tour- 
'ist  travel  are  so  involved  with  each  other,  and  so  planned 
for  exchange,  interchange,  and  succession  of  goers  and 
comers,  that  the  perpetual  rencontres  of  chance  acquaint- 
ances are  amusing.  It  is  like  a  performance  of  the  figures 
of  a  countr3T-dance  on  a  colossal  scale,  so  many  miles  to  a 
figure  ;  and  if  one  sits  down  quietly  at  any  one  of  the  large 
inns  for  a  week,  the  great  body  of  Norway  tourists  for  that 
week  will  be  pretty  sure  to  pass  under  his  inspection. 

At  Holt's,  in  Bergen,  one  sees,  say  forty  travellers,  at 
breakfast,  an}r  morning.  Before  supper  at  eight  in  the 
evening  these  forty  have  gone  their  ways,  and  a  second 
forty  have  arrived,  and  so  on  ;  and  wherever  he  goes  dur- 
ing the  following  week  he  will  meet  detachments  of  these 
same  bands  :  each  man  sure  that  he  has  just  done  the  one 
thing  best  worth  doing,  and  done  it  in  the  best  way ;  each 
eloquent  in  praise  or  dispraise  of  the  inns,  the  roads,  and 
the  people,  and  ready  with  his  "  Oh,  but  you  must  be  sure 
to  see  "  this,  that,  or  the  other. 

There  were  those  who  sat  up  all  night  in  Eide,  that  night, 
for  want  of  a  bed  ;  but  Bob  and  we  were  well  lodged  in  a 
pretty  bedroom,  with  two  windows  white-curtained  and  two 
beds  white-ruffled  to  the  floor,  on  which  were  spread  rugs 
of  black-and-white  goatskins  edged  with  coarse  home-made 
blue  flannel.  In  the  parlor  and  the  dining-room  of  the 
little  inn,  carved  book-cases  and  pipe-cases  hung  on  the 
walls ;  ivies  trained  everywhere  ;  white  curtains,  a  piano, 
black-worsted-covered  high-backed  chairs,  spotless  table 
linen,  and  old  silver  gave  an  air  of  old-fashioned  refine- 
ment to  the  rooms,  which  was  a  surprise. 

The  landlady  wore  the.  peasant's  costume  of  the  Har- 
danger  country :  the  straight  black  skirt  to  the  ankles, 
long  white  apron,  sleeveless  scarlet  jacket,  with  a  gay 
beaded  stomacher  over  a  full  white  blouse,  shining  silver 
ornaments  at  throat  and  wrists,  and  on  her  head  the  ele- 
gant and  dignified  head-dress  of  fine  crimped  white  lawn, 
which  makes  the  Hardanger  wives  by  far  the  most  pictu- 
resque women  to  be  seen  in  all  Norway. 

At  seven  in  the  morning  a  young  peasant  girl  opened 
our  bedroom  door  cautiously  to  ask  if  we  would  have  coffee 
in  bed.  Bob  flew  at  her  with  a  fierce  yelp,  which  made 
her  retreat  hastily,  and  call  for  protection.  Being  sharply 


FOUR  DAYS    WITH  SANNA.  253 

reproved  by  Sanna,  Bob  stood  doggedly  defiant  in  the 
middle  of  the  floor,  turning  his  reproachful  eyes  from  her  to 
the  stranger,  and  back  again,  plainly  saying,  "Ungrateful 
one  !  How  should  I  know  she  was  not  an  enemy  ?  That 
is  the  way  enemies  approach."  The  girl  wore  the  peasant 
maiden's  dress :  a  short  black  skirt  bound  with  scarlet 
braid,  sewed  to  a  short  sleeveless  green  jacket,  which  was 
little  wider  than  a  pair  of  suspenders  between  the  shoulders 
behind.  Her  full,  long-sleeved  white  blouse  came  up  high 
in  the  throat,  and  was  fastened  there  by  two  silver  buttons 
with  Maltese  crosses  hanging  from  them  b}7  curiously 
twisted  chains.  Her  yellow  hair  was  braided  in  two  thick 
braids,  and  wound  tight  round  her  head  like  a  wreath. 
She  had  a  fair  skin,  tender,  honest  blue  eyes,  and  a  face 
serious  enough  for  a  Madonna.  But  she  laughed  when 
she  brought  us  the  eggs  for  our  breakfast,  kept  warm  in 
many  folds  of  linen  napkin  held  down  b}*  a  great  motherly 
hen  of  gray  china  with  a  red  crest  on  its  head. 

The  house  was  a  small  white  cottage ;  at  the  front  door 
a  square  porch,  large  enough  to  hold  two  tables  and  seats 
for  a  dozen  people  ;  opposite  this  a  vine-wreathed  arch  and 
gate  led  into  a  garden,  at  the  foot  of  which  ran  a  noisy 
little  river.  An  old  bent  peasant  woman  was  always  going 
back  and  forth  between  the  house  and  the  river,  carrying 
water  in  two  pails  hung  from  a  yoke  on  her  shoulders. 
A  bit  of  half-mowed  meadow  joined  the  garden.  It  had 
been  mowed  at  intervals,  a  little  piece  at  a  time,  so  that 
the  surface  was  a  patchwork  of  different  shades  of  green. 
The  hay  was  hung  out  to  dry  on  short  lines  of  fence  here 
and  there.  Grass  is  always  dried  in  this  way  in  Norway, 
and  can  hang  on  the  fences  for  two  weeks  and  not  be 
hurt,  even  if  it  is  repeatedly  wet  by  rain.  One  narrow, 
straggling  street  led  off  up  the  hillside,  and  suddenly  dis- 
appeared as  if  the  mountains  had  swallowed  it.  The 
houses  were  thatched,  with  layers  of  birch  bark  put  under 
the  boards ;  sods  of  earth  on  top ;  and  flowers  blooming 
on  them  as  in  a  garden.  One  roof  was  a  bed  of  wild  pan- 
sies,  and  another  of  a  tiny  pink  flower  as  fine  as  a  grass  ; 
and  young  shoots  of  birch  waved  on  them  both.  The  little 
river  which  ran  past  the  inn  garden  had  come  down  from 
the  mountains  through  terraced  meadows,  which  were  about 
half  and  half  meadow  and  terrace ;  stony  and  swampy, 


254        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

and  full  of  hillocks  and  hollows.  New  England  has  acres 
of  fields  like  them ;  only  here  there  were  big  blue  hare- 
bells and  pink  heath,  added  to  clover  and  buttercups, 
wild  parsley  and  j-arrow.  On  tiny  pebbly  bits  of  island 
here  and  there  in  the  brook  grew  purple  thistles,  "snow 
flake,"  and  bushes  of  birch  and  ash. 

Bob  rollicked  in  the  lush  grass,  as  we  picked  our  way 
among  the  moist  hollows  of  this  flowery  meadow.  In 
Sanna's  hand  dangled  a  bit  of  rope,  which  he  eyed  suspi- 
ciously. She  had  brought  it  with  her  to  tie  him  up,  when 
the  hour  should  come  for  him  to  be  carried  on  board  the 
steamer.  He  could  not  have  known  this,  for  he  had  never 
been  tied  up  in  his  life.  But  new  dangers  had  roused  new- 
wariness  in  his  acute  mind :  he  had  distinctly  heard  the  word 
"  steamer"  several  times  that  morning,  and  understood  it. 
I  said  to  him  immediately  after  breakfast,  "  Bob,  you  have 
to  go  home  by  the  steamer  this  morning."  He  instantly  crept 
under  the  sofa,  his  tail  between  his  legs,  and  cowered  and 
crouched  in  the  farthest  corner ;  no  persuasions  could  lure 
him  out,  and  his  eyes  were  piteous  beyond  description. 
Not  until  we  had  walked  some  distance  from  the  house,  in 
a  direction  opposite  to  the  steamer  wharf,  did  he  follow 
us.  Then  lie  came  bounding,  relieved  for  the  time  being 
from  anxiety.  At  last  Sanna,  in  a  feint  of  play,  tied  the 
rope  around  his  neck.  His  bewilderment  and  terror  were 
tragic.  Setting  all  four  feet  firmly  on  the  ground,  he  re- 
fused to  stir,  except  as  he  was  dragged  by  main  force. 
It  was  plain  that  he  would  be  choked  to  death  before  he 
would  obey.  The  rope  project  must  be  abandoned.  Per- 
haps he  could  be  lured  on  board,  following  Sanna.  Vain 
hope !  Long  before  we  reached  the  wharf,  the  engine  of 
the  boat  gave  a  shrill  whistle.  At  the  first  sound  of  it 
Bob  darted  away  like  the  wind,  up  the  road,  past -the 
hotel,  out  of  sight  in  a  minute.  We  followed  him  a  few 
rods,  and  then  gave  it  up.  Again  he  had  outwitted  us. 
We  walked  to  the  steamer,  posted  a  letter,  sat  down,  and 
waited.  The  steamer  blew  five  successive  signals,  and 
then  glided  away  from  the  wharf.  In  less  than  three 
minutes,  before  she  was  many  rods  off,  lo,  Bob!  back 
again,  prancing  around  us  with  glee,  evidently  keeping 
his  eye  on  the  retreating  steamboat,  and  chuckling  to 
aimself  at  his  escape. 


FOUR  DAYS   WITH  SANNA,  255 

"  O  Bob,  Bob  ! "  groaned  Sanna.  "  What  is  to  do  with 
you  ?  " 

We  were  to  set  off  for  Vossevangeu  by  carriage  at  three ; 
at  half-past  two  poor  Bob  was  carried,  struggling,  into  the 
wood-shed,  and  tied  up.  His  cries  were  piteous,  almost 
more  than  we  could  bear.  I  am  sure  he  understood  the 
whole  plot ;  but  the  worst  was  to  come.  By  somebody's 
carelessness,  the  wood-shed  door  was  opened  just  as  we 
were  driving  away  from  the  porch.  With  one  convulsive 
leap  and  cry,  Bob  tore  his  rope  from  the  log  to  which  it 
was  tied,  and  darted  out.  The  stable  boys  caught  him, 
and  held  him  fast ;  his  cries  were  human.  Sanna  buried 
her  face  in  her  hands  and  exclaimed,  "  Oh,  say  to  the 
driver  that  he  go  so  fast  as  he  can ! "  And  we  drove  away,, 
leaving  the  poor,  faithful,  loving  creature  behind,  to  be 
sent  by  express  back  to  Bergen  on  the  steamer  the  next  day. 
It  was  like  leaving  a  little  child  alone  among  strangers, 
heart-broken  and  terrified.  When  we  returned  to  Bergen 
we  learned  that  he  had  touched  neither  food  nor  drink  till 
he  reached  home,  late  the  next  night. 

To  go  from  Eide  to  Vossevangen,  one  must  begin  by- 
climbing  up  out  of  Eide.  It  is  at  the  bottom  of  a  well, 
walled  by  green  hills  and  snow-topped  mountains  ;  at  the 
top  of  the  well  the  country  spreads  out  for  a  little,  only  to 
meet  higher  hills,  higher  mountains.  Here  lies  a  great 
lake,  rimmed  by  broad  borders  of  reeds,  which  shook  and 
glistened  in  the  wind  and  sun  like  the  spears  of  half- 
drowned  armies  as  we  passed.  Clumps  and  groves  of 
ash-trees  on  the  shores  of  this  lake  looked  like  huge  clumsy 
torches  set  in  the  ground :  their  tops  had  been  cut  down 
again  and  again,  till  they  had  grown  as  broad  as  they  were 
high.  The  leaves  are  used  for  the  feed  of  sheep,  and  the 
boughs  for  firewood :  and  as  in  the  frugal  Norwegian 
living  nothing  that  can  be  utilized  is  left  to  lie  idle,  never 
an  ash-tree  has  the  chance  to  shoot  up,  become  tall  and 
full  of  leaf.  Magpies  flitted  in  and  out  among  them. 

"  One  is  for  sorrow,  and  two  are  for  joy,  three  must  be 
a  marriage,  and  four  do  bring  good  fortune,  we  do  say  in 
Norway,"  said  Sanna.  "But  I  think  we  shall  have  all 
sorrow  and  joy,  and  to  be  married  many  times  over,  if  it 
be  true,"  she  added,  as  the  noisy,  showy  creatures  contin- 
ued to  cross  our  road  bv  twos  and  threes. 


256        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

High  up  on  the  hills,  just  in  the  edge  of  snow  patches, 
sreters  were  to  be  seen,  their  brown  roofs  looking  as  much 
a  part  of  the  lonely  Nature  as  did  the  waterfalls  and  the 
pine-trees.  On  all  sides  shone  the  water,  —  trickling  fosses 
down  precipices,  outbursting  fosses  from  ravines  and  dells  ; 
just  before  us  rose  a  wall  some  three  thousand  feet  high, 
over  which  leaped  a  foaming  cataract. 

41  We  shall  go  there,"  said  Sauna,  pointing  up  to  it.  Sure 
enough,  we  did.  By  loops  so  oval  and  narrow  the}-  seemed 
twisted  as  if  to  thread  their  way,  as  eyes  of  needles  are 
threaded,  the  road  wound  and  doubled,  and  doubled  and 
wound,  six  times  crossing  the  hill  front  in  fifteen  hun- 
dred feet.  At  each  double,  the  valley  sank  below  us  ;  the 
lake  sank ;  the  hills  which  walled  the  lake  sank ;  the  road 
was  only  a  broad  rift  among  piled  bowlders.  In  many 
places  these  bowlders  were  higher  than  our  heads ;  but 
there  was  no  sense  of  danger,  for  the  road  was  a  perfect 
road,  smooth  as  a  macadamized  turnpike.  Along  its  outer 
edge  rows  of  thickly  set  rocks,  several  feet  high,  and  so 
near  each  other  that  no  carriage  could  possibly  fall  be- 
tween ;  in  the  most  dangerous  places  stout  iron  bars  were 
set  from  rock  to  rock  ;  these  loops  of  chain  ladder  up  the 
precipice  were  as  safe  as  a  summer  pathway  in  a  green 
meadow.  On  a  stone  bridge  of  three  arches  we  crossed 
the  waterfall :  basins  of  rocks  above  us,  filled  with  spray ; 
basins  and  shelves  and  ledges  of  rocks  below  us,  filled  with 
spray  ;  the  bridge  black  and  slippery  wet,  and  the  air  thick 
with  spray,  like  a  snow-storm  ;  precipices  of  water  on  the 
right  and  the  left.  It  was  next  to  being  an  eagle  on  wing 
in  a  storm  to  cross  that  bridge  in  upper  air.  At  the  sixth 
turn  we  came  out  abreast  of  the  top  of  the  waterfall,  and 
in  a  moment  more  had  left  all  the  stress  and  storm 
and  tumult  of  waters  behind  us,  and  glided  into  a  sombre, 
still  roadway  beside  a  calm  little  river  deep  in  a  fir  forest. 
Only  the  linnaea  had  won  bloom  out  of  this  darkness  ;  its 
courageous  little  tendrils  wreathed  the  tree  trunks  nestled 
among  the  savage  rocks,  and  held  up  myriads  of  pink  cups 
wet  with  the  ceaseless  spray.  It  was  a  dreary,  lonely 
place  ;  miles  of  gaunt  swamp,  forest,  and  stony  moor ; 
here  and  there  a  farm-house,  silent  as  if  deserted. 

"Where  are  all  the  people?  Why  do  we  not  see  any 
one  moving  about  the  houses  ?  "  I  asked. 


FOUR  DAYS    WITH  SANNA.  257 

"  In  the  house,  reading,  ever}'  one,"  replied  Sanna. 
"  On  a  Sunday  afternoon,  if  there  is  no  service  in  church, 
all  Norwegian  farm  people  do  go  into  their  houses,  and 
spend  all  afternoon  in  reading  and  in  religion." 

At  last  we  reached  a  more  open  country,  —  an  off-look  to 
the  west ;  new  ranges  of  snow-topped  mountains  came  in 
sight.  We  began  to  descend  ;  another  silent  river  slipping 
down  by  our  side  ;  two  more  dark,  shining  lakes.  On  the 
shore  of  one,  a  peasant  man  —  the  first  living  creature  we 
had  seen  for  ten  miles  —  was  taking  his  cart  out  of  a  little 
shed  by  the  roadside.  This  shed  was  the  only  sign  of 
human  habitation  to  be  seen  in  the  region.  His  horse 
stood  near  by,  with  a  big  barrel  slung  on  each  side  :  they 
were  barrels  of  milk,  which  had  just  been  brought  down  in 
this  way  from  a  sceter  which  we  could  see,  well  up  in  the 
cloud  region,  far  above  the  woods  on  the  left.  Down 
the  steep  path  from  this  soeter  the  man  had  walked,  and  the 
horse  bearing  the  barrels  of  milk  had  followed.  Now  the 
barrels  were  to  be  put  in  the  cart,  and  carried  to  Eide. 
Ten  miles  more  that  milk  was  to  be  carried  before  it 
reached  its  market ;  and  yet,  at  the  little  inn  in  Eide,  for 
a  breakfast,  at  which  one  ma}-  drink  all  the  milk  he  desires, 
he  will  be  asked  to  pay  only  thirty-five  cents.  What  else 
beside  milk?  Fresh  salmon,  trout,  two  kinds  of  rye  bread 
and  two  of  white,  good  butter,  six  kinds  of  cheese,  her- 
rings done  in  oil  and  laurel  leaves  in  tiny  wooden  barrels, 
cold  sausage,  ham,  smoked  salmon  (raw),  coffee  and  tea, 
and  perhaps  —  wild  strawberries :  this  will  be  the  Eide 
summer-morning  breakfast.  The  cheese  feature  in  the 
Norwegian  breakfast  is  startling  at  first :  all  colors,  sizes, 
shapes,  and  smells  known  of  cheese ;  it  must  be  owned 
they  are  not  savory  for  breakfast,  but  the  Norwegian  eats 
them  almost  as  a  rite.  He  has  a  proverb  in  regard  to 
cheese  as  we  have  of  fruit :  "  Gold  in  the  morning,  silver 
at  noon,  and  lead  at  night ; "  and  he  lives  up  to  it  more 
implicitly  than  we  do  to  ours. 

As  we  neared  Vossevangen,  the  silent  river  grew  noisier 
and  noisier,  and  at  last  let  out  all  its  reserves  in  a  great 
torrent  which  leaped  down  into  the  valley  with  a  roar. 
This  torrent  also  was  bridged  at  its  leap  ;  and  the  bridge 
seemed  to  be  in  a  perpetual  quiver  from  the  shock  of  it. 
The  sides  of  the  rocky  gorge  below  glistened  black  like 


258        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

ebony  ;  they  had  been  worn  into  columnar  grooves  by  the 
centuries  of  whirling  waters ;  the  knotted  roots  of  a  fir 
forest  jutted  out  above  them,  and  long  spikes  of  a  beautiful 
white  flower  hung  out  from  their  crevices  in  masses  of 
waving  snowy  bloom.  It  looked  like  a  variety  of  the 
house-leek,  but  no  human  hand  could  reach  it  to  make 
sure. 

Vossevangen  is  a  little  farming  hamlet  on  the  west  shore 
of  a  beautiful  lake.  The  region  is  one  of  the  best  agricul- 
tural districts  in  western  Norway;  the  "Vos"  farmers 
are  held  to  be  fortunate  and  well  to  do,  and  their  butter 
and  cheese  always  bring  high  prices  in  market. 

On  the  eastern  shore  of  the  lake  is  a  chain  of  mountains, 
from  two  to  four  thousand  feet  high ;  to  the  south,  west, 
and  north  rise  the  green  hills  on  which  the  farms  lie  ;  above 
these,  again,  rise  other  hills,  higher  and  more  distant, 
where  in  the  edges  of  the  snow  tracts  or  buried  in  fir  for- 
ests are  the  sceters,  the  farmers'  summer  homes. 

As  we  drove  into  the  village  we  met  the  peasants  going 
home  from  church :  the  women  in  short  green  or  black 
gowns,  with  gay  jackets  and  white  handkerchiefs  made 
into  a  flying-buttress  sort  of  head-dress  on  their  heads  ;  the 
men  with  knee-breeches,  short  vests,  and  jackets  thick 
trimmed  with  silver  buttons.  Every  man  bowed  and 
every  woman  courtesied  as  we  passed.  To  pass  any 
human  being  on  the  highway  without  a  sign  or  token  of 
greeting  would  be  considered  in  Norway  the  height  of  ill 
manners ;  any  child  seen  to  do  it  would  be  sharply 
reproved.  Probably  few  things  would  astonish  the  rural 
Norwegian  more  than  to  be  told  that  among  the  highly 
civilized  it  is  considered  a  mark  of  good  breeding,  if  you 
chance  to  meet  a  fellow-man  on  the  highway,  to  go  by  him 
with  no  more  recognition  of  his  presence  than  you  would 
give  to  a  tree  or  a  stone  wall. 

It  is  an  odd  thing  that  a  man  should  be  keeping  the 
Vossevangen  Hotel  to-day  who  served  in  America's  civil 
war,  was  for  two  years  in  one  of  the  New  York  regiments, 
and  saw  a  good  deal  of  active  service.  He  was  called 
back  to  Norway  by  the  death  of  his  father,  which  made  it 
necessary  for  him  to  take  charge  of  the  famity  estate  in 
Vossevangen.  He  has  married  a  Vossevangen  woman,  and 
is  likely  to  end  his  days  there  ;  but  he  hankers  for  Chicago, 


FOUR  DAYS    WITH  SANNA.  259 

and  always  will.  He  keeps  a  fairly  good  little  hotel,  on 
the  shores  of  the  lake,  with  a  row  of  willow-trees  in  front ; 
dwarf  apple  -  trees,  gooseberry  and  currant  bushes,  and 
thickets  of  rhubarb  in  his  front  }"ard  ;  roses,  too,  besides 
larkspur  and  phlox  ;  but  the  rhubarb  has  the  place  of  honor. 
The  dining-room  and  the  parlor  were,  like  those  at  Eide, 
adorned  with  ivies  and  flowering  plants  ;  oleanders  in  the 
windows  and  potted  carnations  on  the  table.  In  one  cor- 
ner of  the  dining-room  was  a  large  round  table  covered 
with  old  silver  for  sale :  tankards,  chains,  belts,  buttons, 
coins,  rings,  buckles,  brooches,  ornaments  of  all  kinds,  — 
hundreds  of  dollars'  worth  of  things.  There  they  lay,  day 
and  night,  open  to  all  who  came  ;  and  they  had  done  this, 
the  landlady  said,  for  years,  and  not  a  single  article  had 
ever  been  stolen :  from  which  it  is  plain  that  not  only 
is  the  Norwegian  honest  himself,  there  must  be  a  conta- 
gion in  his  honesty,  which  spreads  it  to  all  travellers  in  his 
country. 

The  next  morning,  early,  we  set  off  in  a  peasant's  cart 
to  visit  some  of  the  farm-houses. 

"  Now  you  shall  see,"  said  Sanna,  "•  that  it  was  not  pos- 
sible if  you  had  all  day  to  ride  in  this  kind  of  wagon." 

It  did  not  take  long  to  prove  the  truth  of  her  remark. 
A  shallow  wooden  box  set  on  two  heavy  wheels  ;  a  wooden 
seat  raised  on  two  slanting  wooden  braces,  so  high  that 
one's  feet  but  just  reach  the  front  edge  of  the  box ;  no  dasher, 
no  sides  to  seat,  no  anj'thing,  apparently,  after  you  are  up, 
except  your  hard  wooden  seat  and  two  pounding  wheels 
below,  —  this  is  the  peasant  wagon.  The  horse,  low  down 
between  two  heavy  thills,  is  without  traces,  pulls  by  a 
breast  collar,  is  guided  by  rope  reins,  and  keeps  his  heels 
half  the  time  under  the  front  edge  of  the  box.  The  driver 
stands  up  in  the  box  behind  you,  and  the  rope  reins  are  in 
your  hair,  or  on  your  neck,  shoulders,  ears,  as  may  be. 
The  walloping  motion  of  this  kind  of  box,  drawn  by  a 
frisky  Norwegian  horse  over  rough  roads,  is  droll  beyond 
description.  But  when  it  comes  to  going  down  hills  in  it, 
and  down  hills  so  steep  that  the  box  appears  to  be  on  the 
point  of  dumping  you  between  the  horse's  ears  at  each 
wallop,  it  ceases  to  be  droll,  and  becomes  horrible.  Our 
driver  was  a  splendid  specimen  of  a  man,  —  six  feet  tall, 
strong  built,  and  ruddy.  When  he  found  that  I  was  an 


260        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

American,  he  glowed  all  over,  and  began  to  talk  rapidly 
to  Sanna.  He  had  six  brothers  in  America. 

"  They  do  say  that  they  all  have  it  very  good  there,"  in- 
terpreted Sanna;  "and  he  thinks  to  go  there  himself  so 
soon  as  there  is  money  to  take  all.  It  must  be  that  Amer- 
ica is  the  best  country  in  the  world,  to  have  it  so  good  there 
that  every  man  can  have  it  good." 

The  roads  up  the  hills  were  little  more  than  paths. 
Often  for  many  rods  there  was  no  trace  of  wheels  on  the 
stony  ledges  ;  again  the  track  disappeared  in  a  bit  of  soft 
meadow.  As  we  climbed,  the  valley  below  us  rounded  and 
hollowed,  and  the  lake  grew  smaller  and  smaller  to  the  eye  ; 
the  surrounding  hills  opened  up,  showing  countless  valleys 
winding  here  and  there  among  them.  It  was  a  surpassingly 
beautiful  view.  Vast  tracts  of  firs,  inky  black  in  the  dis- 
tances, emphasized  the  glittering  of  the  snow  fields  above 
them  and  the  sunny  green  of  the  nearer  foregrounds  below. 

The  first  farm  which  we  visited  lay  about  three  miles  north 
of  the  village,  —  three  miles  north  and  up.  The  buildings 
were  huddled  together,  some  half  dozen  of  them,  in  a  hap- 
hazard sort  of  way,  with  no  attempt  at  order,  no  front,  no 
back,  and  no  particular  reason  for  approaching  one  way 
rather  than  another.  Walls  of  hewn  logs,  black  with  age  ; 
roofs  either  thatched,  or  covered  with  huge  slabs  of  slate, 
laid  on  irregularly  and  moss-grown ;  rough  stones  or  logs 
for  doorsteps ;  so  little  difference  between  the  buildings 
that  one  was  at  a  loss  to  know  which  were  meant  for  dwell- 
ings and  which  for  barns,  —  a  more  unsightty  spot  could 
hardly  be  imagined.  But  the  owners  had  as  quick  an  in- 
stinct of  hospitality  as  if  they  dwelt  in  a  palace.  No  sooner 
did  Sanna  mention  that  I  was  from  America,  and  wished 
to  see  some  of  the  Norwegian  farm-houses,  than  their  faces 
brightened  with  welcome  and  good-will,  and  they  were 
ready  to  throw  open  every  room  and  show  me  all  their 
simple  stores. 

"  There  is  not  a  man  in  all  Vos,"  they  said,  "  who  has 
not  a  relative  in  America."  And  they  asked  eager  question 
after  question,  in  insatiable  curiosity,  about  the  unknown 
country  whither  their  friends  had  gone. 

The  wives  and  daughters  of  the  famih*  were  all  awa}*,  up 
at  the  soeter  with  the  cows  ;  only  the  men  and  the  servant 
maids  were  left  at  home  to  make  the  hay.  Would  I  not 


FOUR  DAYS    WITH  SANNA.  261 

go  up  to  the  sffiter?  .The  mistress  would  be  distressed 
that  an  American  lady  had  visited  the  farm  in  her  absence. 
I  could  easily  go  to  the  soeter  in  a  day.  It  was  only  five 
hours  on  horseback,  and  about  a  half-hour's  walk,  at  the 
last,  over  a  path  too  rough  even  for  riding.  Very  warmly  the 
men  urged  Sanna  to  induce  me  to  make  the  trip.  They 
themselves  would  leave  the  haying  and  go  with  me,  if  I 
would  only  go ;  and  I  must  never  think  I  had  seen  Nor- 
wegian farming  unless  I  had  seen  the  soeter  also,  they  said. 

The  maids  were  at  dinner  in  the  kitchen.  It  was  a  large 
room,  with  walls  not  more  than  eight  feet  high,  black  with 
smoke ;  and  in  the  centre  a  square  stone  trough,  above 
which  was  built  a  funnel  chimne}*.  In  this  hollow  trough 
a  fire  smouldered,  and  above  it  hung  an  enormous  black 
caldron,  full  of  beer,  which  was  being  brewed.  One  of  the 
maids  sprang  from  her  dinner,  lifted  a  trap  door  in  the 
floor,  disappeared  in  the  cellar,  and  presently  returned, 
bringing  a  curious  wooden  drinking-vessel  shaped  like  a 
great  bowl,  with  a  prow  at  each  side  for  handles,  and 
painted  in  gay  colors.  This  was  brimming  full  of  new 
beer,  just  brewed.  Sanna  whispered  to  me  that  it  would 
be  bad  manners  if  we  did  not  drink  freely  of  it.  It  was 
passed  in  turn  to  each  member  of  the  party.  The  driver, 
eying  me  sharply  as  I  forced  down  a  few  mouthfuls  of  the 
nauseous  drink,  said  something  to  Sanna. 

"He  asks  if  American  ladies  do  not  like  beer,"  said 
Sanna.  "  He  is  mortified  that  you  do  not  drink.  It  will 
be  best  that  we  drink  all  we  can.  It  is  all  what  they  have. 
Only  I  do  hope  that  they  give  us  not  brandy." 

There  was  no  window  in  the  kitchen,  no  ventilation  ex- 
cept through  the  chimney  and  the  door.  A  bare  wooden 
table,  wooden  chairs,  a  few  shelves,  where  were  ranged 
some  iron  utensils,  were  all  the  furniture  of  the  gloomy 
room.  The  maids'  dinner  consisted  of  a  huge  plate  of 
fladbrod  and  jugs  of  milk  ;  nothing  else.  They  would  live 
on  that,  Sanna  said,  for  weeks,  and  work  in  the  hay-fields 
from  sunrise  till  midnight. 

Opposite  the  kitchen  was  the  living-room, — the  same 
smoky  log  walls,  bare  floors,  wooden  chairs  and  benches. 
The  expression  of  poverty  was  dismal. 

"  I  thought  you  said  these  people  were  well  to  do  I"  I 
exclaimed. 


262        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

"  So  they  are,"  replied  Sanna.  •  "  They  are  very  well 
off ;  the}-  do  not  know  that  it  is  not  comfort  to  be  like  this. 
They  shall  have  money  in  banks,  these  people.  All  the 
farmers  in  Vos  are  rich." 

Above  the  living-room  were  two  bedrooms  and  clothes- 
rooms.  Here,  in  gay  painted  scarlet  boxes  and  hanging 
from  lines,  were  the  clothes  of  the  family  and  the  bed  linen  of 
the  house.  Mistress  and  maid  alike  must  keep  their  clothes 
in  this  common  room.  The  trunks  were  ranged  around 
the  sides  of  the  room,  each  locked  with  a  key  big  enough 
to  lock  prison  doors.  On  one  side  of  one  of  the  rooms 
were  three  bunk  beds  built  in  under  the  eaves.  These  were 
filled  with  loose  straw,  and  had  only  blankets  for  covers. 
Into  this  straw  the  Norwegian  burrows  by  night,  rolled  in 
his  blankets.  The  beds  can  never  be  moved,  for  they  are 
built  in  with  the  framework  of  the  house.  No  wonder 
that  the  Norwegian  flea  has,  by  generations  of  such  good 
lodging  and  food,  become  a  triumphant  Bedouin  marauder, 
in  comparison  with  whom  the  fleas  of  all  other  countries 
are  too  pett}r  to  deserve  mention. 

The  good-natured  farmer  opened  his  mother's  box  as 
well  as  his  wife's,  and  with  awkward  and  unaccustomed 
hands  shook  out  their  Sunda}r  costumes  for  us  to  see. 
From  another  box,  filled  with  soft  blankets  and  linen,  he 
took  out  a  bottle  of  brand}',  and  pouring  some  into  a  little 
silver  bowl,  with  the  same  prow-shaped  handles  as  the 
wooden  one  we  had  seen  in  the  kitchen,  pressed  us  to 
drink.  One  drop  of  it  was  like  liquid  fire.  He  seemed 
hurt  that  we  refused  more,  and  poured  it  down  his  own 
throat  at  a  gulp,  without  change  of  a  muscle.  Then  he 
hid  the  brandy  bottle  again  under  the  blankets,  and  the 
little  silver  cup  in  the  till  of  his  mother's  chest,  and  locked 
them  both  up  with  the  huge  keys. 

Downstairs  we  found  an  aged  couple,  who  had  come 
from  another  of  the  buildings,  hearing  of  our  presence. 
These  were  the  grandparents.  The  old  woman  was  eighty- 
four,  and  was  knitting  briskly  without  glasses.  She  took 
us  into  the  storerooms,  where  were  bins  of  flour  and  grain  ; 
hams  of  beef  and  pork  hanging  up  ;  wooden  utensils  of  all 
sorts,  curiously  carved  and  stained  wooden  spoons,  among 
other  things,  — a  cask  full  of  them,  put  away  to  be  used 
when  they  had  a  merry-making.  Here  also  were  stacks  of 


FOUR  DAYS   WITH  SANNA.  263 

fladbrod.  This  is  the  staple  of  the  Norwegian's  living ;  it 
is  a  coarse  bread  made  of  dark  flour,, in  cakes  as  thin  as  a 
wafer  and  as  big  round  as  a  barrel.  This  is  baked  once  a 
3*ear,  in  the  spring,  is  piled  up  in  stacks  in  the  storerooms, 
and  keeps  good  till  the  spring  baking  comes  round  again. 
It  is  very  sweet  and  nutritious :  one  might  easily  fare 
worse  than  to  have  to  make  a  meal  of  it  with  milk.  On 
one  of  the  storeroom  shelves  I  spied  an  old  wooden 
drinking-bowl,  set  away  with  dried  peas  in  it.  It  had  been 
broken,  and  riveted  together  in  the  bottom,  but  would  no 
longer  hold  water,  so  had  been  degraded  to  this  use.  It 
had  once  been  gayly  painted,  and  had  a  motto  in  old  Nor- 
wegian around  the  edge:  " Drink  in  good-will,  and  give 
thanks  to  God."  I  coveted  the  thing,  and  offered  to  buy 
it.  It  was  a  stud}*  to  see  the  old  people  consult  with  each 
other  if  they  should  let  it  go.  It  seemed  that  when  they 
first  went  to  housekeeping  it  had  been  given  to  them  by  the 
woman's  mother,  and  was  an  old  bowl  even  then.  It  was 
certainly  over  a  hundred  years  old,  and  how  much  more 
there  was  no  knowing.  After  long  discussion  they  decided 
to  sell  it  to  me  for  four  kroner  (about  one  dollar),  which 
the  son  thought  (Sanna  said)  was  a  shameful  price  to  ask 
for  an  old  broken  bowl.  But  he  stood  by  in  filial  submis- 
sion, and  made  no  loud  objection  to  the  barter.  The  old 
woman  also  showed  us  a  fine  blanket,  which  had  been  spun 
and  woven  by  her  mother  a  hundred  years  ago.  It  was  as 
gay  of  color  and  fantastic  of  design  as  if  it  had  been  made 
in  Algiers.  This  too  she  was  willing  to  sell  for  an  absurdly 
small  price,  but  it  was  too  heavy  to  bring  away.  At  wed- 
dings and  other  festivities  these  ga}-  blankets  are  hung  on 
the  walls ;  and  it  is  the  custom  for  neighbors  to  lend  all 
they  can  on  such  occasions. 

The  next  farm  we  visited  belonged  to  the  richest  people 
in  Vos.  It  lay  a  half-mile  still  higher  up,  and  the  road 
leading  to  it  seemed  perilous!}'  steep.  The  higher  we  went, 
the  greater  the  profusion  of  flowers :  the  stony  way  led  us 
through  tracts  of  bloom,  in  blue  and  gold  ;  tall  spikes  of 
mullein  in  clumps  like  hollyhocks,  and  "  shepherd's  bells" 
in  great  purple  patches. 

The  buildings  of  this  farm  were  clustered  around  a  sort 
of  court-yard  enclosure,  roughly  flagged  by  slate.  Most 
of  the  roofs  were  also  slated  ;  one  or  two  were  thatched, 


264        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

and  these  thatched  roofs  were  the  only  thing  that  redeemed 
the  gloom  of  the  spot,  the  sods  on  these  being  bright  with 
pansies  and  grasses  and  waving  raspberry  bushes.  Here 
also  we  found  the  men  of  the  family  alone  at  home,  the 
women  being  gone  on  their  summering  at  the  soeter.  The 
3'oungest  son  showed  us  freely  from  room  to  room,  and 
displayed  with  some  pride  the  trunks  full  of  blankets  and 
linen,  and  the  rows  of  women's  dresses  hanging  in  the 
chambers.  On  two  sides  of  one  large  room  these  were 
hung  thick  one  above  another,  no  variety  in  them,  and  no 
finery ;  merely  a  succession  of  strong,  serviceable  petti- 
coats, of  black,  green,  or  gray  woollen.  The  gay  jackets 
and  stomachers  were  packed  away  in  trunks ;  huge  fur- 
lined  coats,  made  of  the  same  shape  for  men  and  for 
women,  hung  in  the  storeroom.  Some  of  the  trunks  were 
red,  painted  in  gay  colors  ;  some  were  of  polished  cedar, 
finished  with  fine  brass  mountings.  As  soon  as  a  Norwe- 
gian girl  approaches  womanhood,  one  of  these  trunks  is 
given  her,  set  in  its  place  in  the  clothes-room,  and  her 
accumulations  begin.  Clothes,  bedding,  and  silver  orna- 
ments seem  to  be  the  only  things  for  which  the  Norwegian' 
peasant  spends  his  money.  In  neither  of  these  houses  was 
there  an  article  of  superfluous  furniture,  not  even  of  ordi- 
nary comfort.  In  both  were  the  same  bunk  beds,  built 
in  under  the  eaves ;  the  same  loose,  tossed  straw,  with 
blankets  for  covering  ;  and  only  the  coarsest  wooden  chairs 
and  benches  for  seats.  The  young  man  opened  his  moth- 
er's trunk,  and  took  from  one  corner  a  beautiful  little  silver 
beaker,  with  curling,  prow-shaped  handles.  In  this  the 
old  lady  had  packed  away  her  silver  brooches,  buttons,  and 
studs  for  the  summer.  Side  by  side  with  them,  thrown  in 
loosely  among  her  white  head-dresses  and  blouses,  were 
half  a  dozen  small  twisted  rolls  of  white  bread.  Sanna  ex- 
plained this  by  saying  that  the  Norwegians  never  have  this 
bread  except  at  their  most  important  festivals  ;  it  is  consid- 
ered a  great  luxury,  and  these  had  no  doubt  been  put  away 
as  a  future  treat,  as  we  should  put  away  a  bit  of  wedding- 
cake  to  keep.  Very  irreverently  the  son  tipped  out  all  his 
mother's  ornaments  into  the  bottom  of  the  trunk,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  fill  the  little  beaker  with  fiery  brandy  from  a 
bottle  which  had  been  hid  in  another  corner.  From  lip  to 
lip  it  was  passed,  returning  to  him  wellnigh  untasted ;  but 


FOUR  DAYS    WITH  SANNA-  265 

he  poured  the  whole  down  at  a  draught,  smacked  his  lips, 
and  tossed  the  cup  back  into  the  trunk,  dripping  with  the 
brandy.  Very  much  that  good  old  Norwegian  dame,  when 
she  comes  down  in  the  autumn,  will  wonder,  I  fancy,  what 
has  happened  to  her  nicely  packed  trunk  of  underclothes, 
diT  bread,  and  old  silver. 

There  were  several  storerooms  in  these,  farm  buildings, 
and  the}'  were  well  filled  with  food,  grain,  flour,  dried 
meats,  fish,  and  towers  of  fladbrod.  Looms  with  partly 
finished  webs  of  cloth  in  them  were  there  set  away  till  win- 
ter ;  baskets  full  of  carved  yellow  spoons  hung  on  the  wall. 
In  one  of  the  rooms,  standing  on  the  sill  of  the  open 
window,  were  two  common  black  glass  bottles,  with  a  few 
pond-lilies  in  each,  —  the  only  bit  of  decoration  or  token 
of  love  of  the  beautiful  we  had  found.  Seeing  that  I  looked 
at  the  lilies  with  admiration,  the  young  man  took  them  out, 
wiped  their  dripping  stems  on  his  coat-sleeve,  and  pre- 
sented them  to  me  with  a  bow  that  a  courtier  might  have 
envied.  The  grace,  the  courtes}7,  of  the  Norwegian  peas- 
ant's bow  is  something  that  must  date  centuries  back. 
Surely  there  is  nothing  in  his  life  and  surroundings  to-day 
to  create  or  explain  it.  It  must  be  a  trace  of  something 
that  Olaf  Tn-ggveson  —  that  "magnificent,  far -shining 
man "  —  scattered  abroad  in  his  kingdom  eight  hundred 
j-ears  ago,  with  his  "bright,  airy,  wise  way"  of  speaking 
and  behaving  to  women  and  men. 

One  of  the  buildings  on  this  farm  was  known,  the  young 
man  said,  to  be  at  least  two  hundred  years  old.  The  logs 
are  moss-grown  and  black,  but  it  is  good  for  hundreds  of 
years  yet.  The  first  story  is  used  now  for  a  storeroom. 
From  this  a  ladder  led  up  to  a  half-chamber  overhead,  the 
front  railed  by  a  low  railing ;  here,  in  this  strange  sort  of 
balconv  bedroom,  had  slept  the  children  of  the  family,  all  the 
time  under  observation  of  their  elders  below. 

Thrust  in  among  the  rafters,  dark,  rusty,  bent,  was  an 
ancient  sword.  Our  guide  took  it  out  and  handed  it  to  us, 
with  a  look  of  awe  on  his  face.  No  one  knew,  he  said, 
how  long  that  sword  had  been  on  the  farm.  In  the  earliest 
writings  by  which  the  estate  had  been  transferred,  that 
sword  had  been  mentioned,  and  it  was  a  clause  in  every 
lease  since  that  it  should  never  betaken  away  from  the  place. 
However  many  times  the  farm  might  change  hands,  the 


266        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY. 

sword  must  go  with  it,  for  all  time.  Was  there  no  legend, 
no  tradition,  with  it?  None  that  his  father  or  his  father's 
father  had  ever  heard  ;  only  the  mysterious  entailed  ehurge, 
from  generation  to  generation,  that  the  sword  must  never 
be  removed.  The  blade  was  thin  and  the  edge  jagged,  the 
handle  plain  and  without  ornament;  evidently  the  sword 
had  been  for  work,  and  not  for  show.  There  was  some- 
thing infinitely  solemn  in  its  inalienable  estate  of  safe  and 
reverent  keeping  at  the  hands  of  men  all  ignorant  of  its 
history.  It  is  by  no  means  impossible  that  it  had  jour- 
neyed in  the  company  of  that  Sigurd  who  sailed  with  his 
splendid  fleet  of  sixty  ships  for  Palestine,  earl}'  in  the 
twelfth  century.  Sigurd  Jorsalafarer,  or  Traveller  to  Je- 
rusalem, he  was  called ;  and  no  less  an  authority  than 
Thomas  Carlvle  vouches  for  him  as  having  been  ' '  a  wise, 
able,  and  prudent  man,"  reigning  in  a  "solid  and  success- 
ful way."  Through  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar  to  Jerusalem, 
home  by  way  of  Constantinople  and  Russia,  "  shining  with 
renown,"  he  sailed,  and  took  a  hand  in  any  fighting  he 
found  going  on  by  the  wa}r.  Many  of  his  men  came  from 
the  region  of  the  Sogne  Fjord  ;  and  the  more  I  thought  of 
it  the  surer  I  felt  that  this  old  sword  had  many  a  time 
flashed  on  the  deck  of  his  ships. 

Our  second  day  opened  rainy.  The  lake  was  blotted 
out  by  mist ;  on  the  fence  under  the  willows  sat  half  a 
dozen  men,  roosting  as  unconcernedly  as  if  it  were  warm 
sunshine. 

"  It  does  wonder  me,"  said  Sanna,  "  that  I  find  here  so 
many  men  standing  idle.  When  the  railroad  come,  it  shall 
be  that  the  life  must  be  different." 

A  heroic  English  part}-,  undeterred  by  weather,  were 
setting  off  in  carioles  and  on  horseback.  Delays  after 
delays  occurred  to  hinder  them.  At  the  last  moment  their 
angry  courier  was  obliged  to  go  and  fetch  the  washing, 
which  had  not  arrived.  There  is  a  proverb  in  Norway, 
"When  the  Norwegian  says  '  immediately,'  look  for  him 
in  half  an  hour." 

Finall}-,  at  noon,  in  despair  of  sunshine,  we  also  set  off: 
rugs,  water-proofs ;  the  india-rubber  boot  of  the  carriage 
drawn  tight  up  to  the  level  of  our  e}'es  ;  we  set  off  in  pour- 
ing sheets  of  rain  for  Gudvangen.  For  the  first  two  hours 
the  sole  variation  of  the  monotony  of  our  journey  was  iu 


FOUR  DAYS   WITH  SANNA.  267 

•mptying  the  boot  of  water  once  every  five  minutes,  just  in 
time  to  save  a  freshet  in  our  laps.  High  mountain  peaks, 
black  with  forests  or  icy  white  with  snow,  gleamed  in  and 
out  of  the  clouds  on  either  hand,  as  we  toiled  and  splashed 
along.  Occasional  lightings  up  revealed  stretches  of  bar- 
ren country,  here  and  there  a  cluster  of  farm-houses  or  a 
lowly  church.  On  the  shores  of  a  small  lake  we  passed 
one  of  these  lonely  churches.  Only  two  other  buildings 
were  in  sight  in  the  vast  expanse  :  one,  the  wretched  little 
inn  where  we  were  to.  rest  our  horses  for  half  an  hour ;  the 
other,  the  parsonage.  This  last  was  a  pretty  little  cottage, 
picturesquely  built  of  yellow  pine,  half  bowered  in  vines, 
looking  in  that  lonely  waste  as  if  it  had  lost  itself  and 
strayed  away  from  some  civilized  spot.  The  pastor  and 
his  sister,  who  kept  house  for  him,  were  away ;  but  his 
servant  was  so  sure  that  they  would  like  to  have  us  see  their 
home  that  we  allowed  her  to  show  it  to  us.  It  was  a 
tasteful  and  cosey  little  home  :  parlor,  study,  and  dining- 
room,  all  prettily  carpeted  and  furnished  ;  books,  flowers, 
a  sewing-machine,  and  a  piano.  It  did  one's  heart  good 
to  see  such  an  oasis  of  a  home  in  the  wilderness.  Drawn 
up  on  rests  in  a  shed  near  the  house,  was  an  open  boat, 
much  like  a  wherry.  The  pastor  spent  hours  every  day,  the 
maid  said,  in  rowing  on  the  lake.  It  was  his  great  pleasure. 
Up,  up  we  climbed  :  past  fir  forests,  swamps,  foaming 
streams,  —  the  wildest,  weirdest  road  storm-driven  people 
ever  crossed.  Spite  of  the  rain,  half-naked  children  came 
flying  out  of  hovels  and  cabins  to  open  gates  :  sometimes 
there  would  be  six  in  a  row,  their  thin  brown  hands  ail 
stretched  for  alms,  and  their  hollow  eyes  begging  piteously  ; 
then  they  would  race  on  ahead  to  open  the  next  gate.  The 
moors  seemed  but  a  succession  of  enclosed  pasture-lands. 
Now  and  then  we  passed  a  little  knot  of  cabins  close  to 
the  road,  and  men  who  looked  kindly,  but  as  wild  as  wild 
beasts,  would  come  out  and  speak  to  the  driver ;  their 
poverty  was  direful  to  see.  At  last,  at  the  top  of  a  high 
hill,  we  halted ;  the  storm  stayed  ;  the  clouds  lifted  and 
blew  off.  At  our  feet  lay  a  black  chasm  ;  it  was  like 
looking  down  into  the  bowels  of  the  earth.  This  was  the 
Nerodal  Valley  ;  into  it  we  were  to  descend.  Its  walls 
were  three  and  four  thousand  feet  high.  It  looked  little 
more  than  a  cffeftl  A  Tte  Nft&b<iwviirtlri^»*xiiftitous  wall 


LOS  ANGELES^  -:-  GAL. 


268        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY. 

is  a  marvel  of  engineering.  It  is  called  the  Stalheimscleft, 
and  was  built  by  a  Norwegian  officer,  Captain  Finne.  It 
is  made  in  a  series  of  zigzagging  loops,  which  are  so  long 
'and  so  narrow  that  the  descent  at  no  point  appears  steep ; 
yet  as  one  looks  up  from  an}-  loop  to  the  loop  next  above, 
it  seems  directl}'  over  his  head.  Down  this  precipice  into 
the  Nerodal  Valley  leap  two  grand  fosses,  the  Stalheimfos 
and  the  Salvklevfos  ;  roaring  in  ceaseless  thunder,  filling 
the  air,  and  drenching  the  valley  with  spra}T.  Tin}-  grass- 
grown  spaces  between  the  bowlders  and  the  loops  of  the 
road  had  all  been  close  mowed ;  spaces  which  looked  too 
small  for  the  smallest  reaping-hook  to  swing  in  were  yet 
close  shorn,  and  the  little  handfuls  of  hay  hung  up  drying 
on  hand's-breadths  of  fence  set  up  for  the  purpose.  Even 
single  blades  of  grass  are  too  precious  in  Norway  to  be 
wasted. 

As  we  walked  slowly  down  this  incredible  road,  we 
paused  step  by  step  to  look  first  up,  then  down.  The 
carriage  waiting  for  us  below  on  the  bridge  looked  like  a 
baby  wagon.  The  river  made  by  the  meeting  of  these  two 
great  cataracts  at  the  base  of  the  precipice  was  only  a 
little  silver  thread  flowing  down  the  valley.  The  cataracts 
seemed  leaping  from  the  sky,  and  the  sky  seemed  resting 
on  the  hill-tops ;  masses  of  whirling  and  floating  clouds 
added  to  the  awesome  grandeur  of  the  scene.  The  Stal- 
heimfos fell  into  a  deep,  basin-shaped  ravine,  piled  with 
great  bowlders,  and  full  of  birch  and  ash  shrubs  ;  in  the 
centre  of  this,  by  some  strange  play  of  the  water,  rose  a 
distinct  and  beautifully  shaped  cone,  thrown  up  closely  in 
front  of  the  fall,  almost  blending  with  it,  and  thick  veiled 
in  the  tumultuous  spray,  —  a  fountain  in  a  waterfall.  It 
seemed  the  accident  of  a  moment,  but  its  shape  did  not 
alter  so  long  as  we  watched  it ;  it  is  a  part  of  the  fall. 

Five  miles  down  this  cleft,  called  valley,  to  Gudvangen 
run  the  road  and  the  little  river  and  the  narrow  strips  of 
meadow,  dark,  thin,  and  ghastly;  long  months  in  utter 
darkness  this  Nerodal  lies,  and  never,  even  at  summer's 
best  and  longest,  has  it  more  than  a  half-day  of  sun.  The 
mountains  rise  in  sheer  black  walls  on  either  hand,  —  bare 
rock  in  colossal  shafts  and  peaks,  three,  four,  and  even  five 
thousand  feet  high  ;  snow  in  the  rifts  at  top ;  patches  of 
gaunt  firs  here  and  there  ;  great  spaces  of  tumbled  rocks, 


FOUR  DAYS   WITH  SANNA.  269 

where  avalanches  have  slid ;  pebbly  and  sandy  channels 
worn  from  side  to  side  of  the  vallej^,  where  torrents  have 
rushed  down  and  torn  a  way  across ;  white  streams  from 
top  to  bottom  of  the  precipices,  all  foam  and  quiver,  like 
threads  spun  out  on  the  sward,  more  than  can  be  counted ; 
the}'  seem  to  swing  down  out  of  the  sky  as  spider  threads 
swing  swift  and  countless  in  a  dewy  morning. 

Sanna  shuddered.  "  Now  you  see,  one  could  not  spend 
a  whole  day  in  Nerodal  Valley,"  she  said.  "  It  does  won- 
der me  that  any  people  will  live  here.  Every  spring  the 
mountains  do  fall  and  people  are  killed." 

On  a  narrow  rim  of  land  at  base  of  these  walls,  just 
where  the  fjord  meets  the  river,  is  the  village  of  Gud- 
vangen,  a  desolate  huddle  of  half  a  dozen  poor  houses. 
A  chill  as  of  death  filled  the  air ;  foul  odors  arose  at  every 
turn.  The  two  little  inns  were  overcrowded  with  people, 
who  roamed  restlessly  up  and  down,  waiting  for  they  knew 
not  what.  An  indescribable  gloom  settles  on  Gudvangen 
with  nightfall.  The  black  waters  of  the  fjord  chafing 
monotonously  at  the  base  of  the  black  mountains  ;  the  sky 
black  also,  and  looking  farther  off  than  sky  ever  looked 
before,  walled  into  a  strip,  like  the  vallej^  beneath  it ; 
hemmed  in,  forsaken,  doomed,  and  left  seems  Gudvangen. 
What  hold  life  can  have  on  a  human  being  kept  in  such  a 
spot  it  is  hard  to  imagine.  Yet  we  found  three  very  old 
women  hobnobbing  contentedl}'  there  in  a  cave  of  a  hut. 
Ragged,  dirt}',  hideous,  hopeless  one  would  have  thought 
them  ;  but  they  were  all  agog  and  cheery,  and  full  of  plans 
for  repairing  their  house.  They  were  in  a  little  log  stable, 
perhaps  ten  feet  square,  and  hardly  high  enough  to  stand 
upright  in  :  they  were  cowering  round  a  bit  of  fire  in  the 
centre  ;  their  piles  of  straw  and  blankets  laid  in  corners  ; 
not  a  chair,  not  a  table.  Macbeth's  witches  had  seemed 
full -dressed  society  women  by  the  side  of  these.  We 
peered  timidl}'  in  at  the  group,  and  they  all  came  running 
towards  us,  chattering,  glad  to  see  strangers,  and  apolo- 
gizing for  their  condition,  because,  as  they  said,  they  had 
just  turned  in  there  together  for  a  few  days,  while  their 
house  across  the  way  was  being  mended.  Not  a  light  of 
any  description  had  the}-,  except  the  fire.  The  oldest  one 
hobbled  awa}-,  and  returned  with  a  small  tallow  candle, 
which  she  lit  and  held  in  her  hand,  to  show  us  how 


270        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

comfortable  they  were,  after  all ;  plenty  of  room  for  three 
piles  of  straw  on  the  rough  log  floor.  Their  "house  across 
the  way"  was  a  little  better  than  this;  not  much.  One 
of  the  poor  old  crones  had  "five  children  in  America." 
"They  wanted  her  to  come  out  to  America  and  live  with 
them,  but  she  was  too  old  to  go  awa.y  from  home,"  she 
said.  "  Home  was  the  best  place  for  old  people,"  to  which 
the  other  two  assented  eagerly.  "  Oh,  yes,  home  was  the 
best  place.  America  was  too  far." 

It  seemed  a  miracle  to  have  comfort  in  an  inn  in  so 
poverty-stricken  a  spot  as  this,  but  we  did.  We  slept  in 
straw-filled  bunks,  set  tight  into  closets  under  the  eaves  ; 
only  a  narrow  doorway  by  which  to  get  in  and  out  of  bed ; 
but  there  were  two  windows  in  the  room,  and  no  need  to 
stifle.  And  for  supper  there  was  set  before  us  a  stew  of 
lamb,  delicately  flavored  with  curry,  and  served  with  rice, 
of  which  no  house  need  be  ashamed.  That  so  palatable 
a  dish  could  have  issued  from  the  place  which  answered 
for  kitchen  in  that  poor  little  inn  was  a  marvel ;  it  was 
little  more  than  a  small  dark  tomb.  The  dishes  were  all 
washed  out-of-doors  in  tubs  set  on  planks  laid  across  two 
broken  chairs  at  the  kitchen  door ;  and  the  food  and  milk 
were  kept  in  an  above-ground  cellar  not  three  steps  from 
the  same  door.  This  had  been  made  by  an  immense  slab 
of  rock  which  had  crashed  down  from  the  mountain  top, 
one  day,  and  instead  of  tearing  through  the  house  and 
killing  everybody  had  considerately  lodged  on  top  of 
two  other  bowlders,  roofing  the  space  in,  and  forming  a 
huge  stone  refrigerator  ready  to  hand  for  the  innkeeper. 
The  enclosed  space  was  cold  as  ice,  and  high  enough 
and  large  enough  for  one  to  walk  about  in  it  comfortably. 
I  had  the  curiosity  to  ask  this  innkeeper  how  much  he 
could  make  in  a  year  off  his  inn.  When  he  found  that  I 
had  no  sinister  motive  in  the  inquiry,  he  was  freely  com- 
municative. At  first  he  feared,  Sanna  said,  that  it  might 
become  known  in  the  town  how  much  mone}-  he  was  mak- 
ing, and  that  demands  might  be  made  on  him  in  conse- 
quence. If  the  season  of  summer  travel  were  very  good, 
he  said  he  would  clear  two  hundred  dollars ;  but  he  did 
not  always  make  so  much  as  that.  He  earned  a  little  also 
by  keeping  a  small  shop,  and  in  the  winter  that  was  his 
only  resource.  He  had  a  wife  and  two  children,  and  his 


FOUR  DAYS   WITH  SANNA.  271 

wife  was  not  strong,  which  made  it  harder  for  them,  as 
they  were  obliged  always  to  keep  a  servant. 

Even  in  full  sunlight,  at  nine  of  the  morning,  Gudvangen 
looked  grim  and  dangerous,  and  the  Nero  Fjord  water 
black.  As  we  sailed  out,  the  walls  of  the  valley  closed 
up  suddenly  behind  us,  as  with  a  snap  which  might  have 
crauuched  poor  little  Gudvangen  to  death.  The  fjord  is 
as  wild  as  the  pass ;  in  fact,  the  same  thing,  only  that  it 
has  water  at  bottom  instead  of  land,  and  you  can  sail 
closer  than  you  can  drive  at  base  of  the  rocky  walls.  Soon 
we  came  to  the  mouth  of  another  great  fjord,  opening  up 
another  watery  road  into  the  mountains ;  this  was  the 
Aurland,  and  on  its  farther  shore  opened  again  the  Sog- 
nedal  Fjord,  up  which  we  went  a  little  way  to  leave  some- 
body at  a  landing.  Here  were  green  hills  and  slopes  and 
trees,  and  a  bright  yellow  church,  shaped  like  a  blanc- 
mange mould  in  three  pyramid-shaped  cones,  each  smaller 
than  the  one  below. 

"  Here  is  the  finest  fruit  orchard  in  all  Scandinavia," 
said  Sanna,  pointing  to  a  pretty  place  just  out  of  the  town, 
where  fields  rose  one  above  the  other  in  terraces  on  south- 
facing  slopes,  covered  thick  with  orchards.  "It  belongs 
to  an  acquainted  with  me  :  but  she  must  sell  it.  She  is  a 
widow,  and  she  cannot  take  the  care  to  herself." 

Back  again  across  the  mouth  of  the  Auvland  Fjord,  and 
then  out  into  the  great  Sogne  Fjord,  zigzagging  from  side 
to  side  of  it,  and  up  into  numerous  little  fjords  where  the 
boat  looked  to  be  steering  straight  into  hills, — we  seemed 
to  be  adrift,  without  purpose,  rather  than  on  a  definite 
voyage  with  a  fixed  aim  of  getting  home.  The  magnifi- 
cent labyrinths  of  walled  waters  were  calm  as  the  heavens 
they  reflected ;  the  clouds  above  and  clouds  below  kept 
silent  pace  with  each  other,  and  we  seemed  gliding  between 
two  skies.  Great  snow  fjelds  came  in  sight,  wheeled,  rose, 
sank,  and  disappeared,  as  we  passed ;  sometimes  green 
meadows  stretched  on  either  side  of  us,  then  terrible  gorges 
and  pinnacles  of  towering  rock.  Picture  after  picture  we 
saw,  of  gay-colored  little  villages,  with  rims  of  fields  and 
rock}*  promontories ;  snow  fjelds  above,  and  fir  forests 
between  ;  glittering  waterfalls  shooting  from  the  sky  line 
'to  the  water,  like  white  lightning  down  a  black  stone  front, 
or  leaping  out  in  spaces  of  feathery  snow,  like  one  preter- 


272        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY. 

natural  blooming  of  the  forests  all  the  way  down  the  black 
walls  rising  perpendicularly  thousands  of  feet ;  tiers  of 
blue  mountains  in  the  distance,  dark  blue  on  the  nearest, 
and  shading  off  to  palest  blue  at  the  sky  line  ;  the  fjord 
dark  purple  in  the  narrows,  shading  to  gray  in  the  opens  ; 
illuminated  spaces  of  green,  now  at  the  shore,  now  half- 
way up,  now  two-thirds-way  up  to  the  sky ;  tops  of  hills 
in  sunlight ;  bars  of  sunlight  streaming  through  dark  clefts. 
Then  a  storm-sweep  across  the  fjord,  far  in  our  wake,  — 
swooping  and  sweeping,  and  gone  in  a  half-hour ;  blotting 
out  the  mountains ;  then  turning  them  into  a  dark-slate 
wall,  on  which  white  sails  and  cross-sunbeams  made  a 
superb  shining.  And  so,  between  the  sun  and  the  storm, 
we  came  to  Valestrand,  and  sent  off  and  took  on  boat- 
loads of  pleasuring  people,  — the  boats  with  bright  flags  at 
prow  and  stern,  and  gay-dressed  women  with  fantastic 
parasols  like  butterflies  poised  on  their  edges,  — Valestrand, 
where,  as  some  say,  Frithiof  was  born  ;  and  as  all  say,  he 
burnt  one  of  Balder's  great  temples.  Then  Ladvik,  on  a 
green  slope  turning  to  gold  in  the  sun ;  its  white  church 
with  a  gray  stone  spire  relieved  against  a  bank  of  purple 
gloom ;  the  lights  sinking  lower  and  the  shadows  stretch- 
ing farther  every  minute ;  shadows  of  hills  behind  which 
the  sun  had  already  gone,  thrown  sharp  and  black  on 
hills  still  glowing  in  full  light ;  hills  before  us,  shimmer- 
ing in  soft  silver  gray  and  pale  purple  against  a  clear 
golden  west;  hills  behind  us,  folding  and  folded  in 
masses  of  rosy  vapor ;  shining  fosses  leaping  down  among 
them ;  the  colors .  changing  like  the  colors  of  a  prism 
minute  by  minute  along  the  tops  of  the  ranges, — this 
was  the  way  our  day  on  the  Sogne  Fjord  drew  near  its 
ending.  Industriously  knitting,  with  eyes  firm  fastened  on 
her  needles,  sat  an  English  matron  near  us  on  the  deck. 
Not  one  glance  of  her  63-6  did  she  give  to  the  splendors  of 
sky  and  water  and  land  about  her. 

"  I  do  think  that  lady  must  be  in  want  of  stockings  very 
much,"  remarked  Sanna quietly ;  "but  she  need  not  to  come 
to  Norwa}*  to  knit." 

Far  worse,  however,  than  the  woman  who  knitted  were 
the  women  and  the  men  who  talked,  loudly,  stupidly,  vul- 
garly, around  us.  It  was  mortifying  that  their  talk  was 
English,  but  they  were  not  Americans.  At  last  they  drove 


FOUR  DAYS   WITH  SANNA.  273 

us  to  another  part  of  the  deck,  but  not  before  a  few  phrases 
of  their  conversation  had  been  indelibly  stamped  on  my 
memory. 

"  Well,  we  were  in  Dresden  two  days :  there 's  only  the 
gallery  there  ;  that 's  time  enough  for  that." 
'  Raphaels,  —  lots  of  Raphaels." 

'  I  don't  care  for  Raphaels,  anyhow.     I  '11  tell  .you  who 
I  like  ;  I  like  Veronese." 

k  Well,  I  'm  very  fond  of  Tintoretto." 
'  I  like  Titians  ;  the}'  're  so  delicate,  don't  you  know  ?  " 
'  Well,  who  's  that  man  that 's  painted  such  dreadful 
things,  —  all  mixed  up,  don't  you  know  ?    In  some  places 
you  see  a  good  many  of  them." 

"  You  don't  mean  Rembrandt,  do  you?  There  are  a  lot 
of  Rembrandts  in  Munich." 

"  There  was  one  picture  I  liked.  I  think  it  was  a  Christ ; 
but  I  ain't  sure.  There  were  four  children  on  the  ground, 
I  remember." 

When  the  real  sunset  came  we  were  threading  the  rocky 
labyrinths  of  the  Bergen  Fjord.  It  is  a  field  of  bowlders, 
with  an  ocean  let  in  ;  nothing  more.  Why  the  bowlders 
are  not  submerged,  since  the  water  is  deep  enough  for  big 
ships  to  sail  on,  is  the  perpetual  marvel ;  but  they  are  not. 
They  are  as  firm  in  their  places  as  continents,  m}Tiads  of 
them  only  a  few  feet  out  of  water  ;  and  when  the  sun  as  it 
sinks  sends  a  flood  of  gold  and  red  light  athwart  them, 
they  turn  all  colors,  and  glow  on  the  water  like  great 
smoke  crystals  with  fire  shining  through.  To  sail  up  this 
fjord  in  the  sunset  is  to  wind  through  devious  lanes  walled 
with  these  jewels,  and  to  look  off,  over  and  above  them, 
to  fields  of  purple  and  gray  and  green,  islands  on  islands 
on  islands,  to  the  right  and  to  the  left,  with  the  same  jewel- 
walled  lanes  running  east  and  west  and  north  and  south 
among  them  ;  the  sky  will  stream  with  glowing  colors  from 
horizon  to  horizon,  and  the  glorious  silence  will  be  broken 
by  no  harsher  sound  than  the  low  lapsing  of  waters  and 
the  soft  whirr  of  gray  gulls'  wings. 

And  so  we  came  to  Bergen  in  the  bright  midnight  of  the 
last  of  our  four  days. 

Months  afterwards  Sanna  sent  me  a  few  extracts  from 
descriptions  given  by  a  Norwegian  writer  of  some  of  the 
spots  we  had  seen  in  the  dim  upper  distances  along  the 
18 


274        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

fjords,  —  some  of  those  illuminated  spaces  of  green  high 
up  among  the  crags,  which  looked  such  sunny  and  peaceful 
homes. 

Her  English  is  so  much  more  graphic  than  mine  that  I 
have  begged  her  permission  to  give  the  extracts  as  she 
wrote  them :  — 

"Grand,  glorious,  and  serious  is  the  Sogne  Fjord.  Serious 
In  itself,  and  still  more  serious  we  find  it  when  we  know  where 
and  how  people  do  live  there  between  mountains.  And  we 
must  wonder  or  ask,  Is  there  really  none  places  left,  or  no  kind 
of  work  for  those  people  to  get  for  the  maintenance  of  the  life, 
but  to  go  to  such  desolate  and  rather  impassable  a  place?  .  .  . 

"  More  than  half  of  the  year  are  the  two  families  who  live  on 
the  farm  of  Vetti  separated  from  all  other  human  beings.  During 
the  winter  can  the  usual  path  in  the  grass  not  be  passed  in  case 
of  snow,  ice,  and  perpetual  slips,  which  leave  behind  trace  long 
out  in  the  summer,  because  the  sun  only  for  a  short  time  came 
over  this  long  enormous  abyss,  and  does  not  linger  there  long, 
so  that  the  snow  which  has  been  to  ice  do  melt  very  slow,  and 
seldom  disappear  earlier  than  in  July.  The  short  time  in  the 
winter  when  the  river  Utla  is  frozen  may  the  bottom  of  the  pass 
well  be  passed,  though  not  without  danger,  on  account  of  the 
mentioned  slips,  which,  with  the  power  of  the  hurricane,  are 
whizzing  down  in  the  deep,  and  which  merely  pressure  of  the 
air  is  so  strong  that  it  throw  all  down. 

"  Late  in  the  autumn  and  in  the  spring  is  all  approach  to  and 
from  Vetti  quite  stopped;  and  late  in  the  autumn  chiefly  with 
ground  and  snow  slips,  which  then  get  loosened  by  the  frequent 
rain.  The  farm-houses  is  situate  on  a  steep  slope,  so  that 
the  one  end  of  the  lowest  beam  is  put  on  the  mere  ground, 
and  the  other  end  must  be  put  on  a  wall  almost  three  yards 
high.  The  fields  are  so  steep,  and  so  quite  near  the  dreadful 
precipice,  that  none  unaccustomed  to  it  do  venture  one's  sel\ 
thither  ;  and  when  one  from  here  look  over  the  pass,  and  look 
the  meadows  which  is  more  hanging  than  laying  over  the  deep, 
and  which  have  its  grass  mowed  down  with  a  short  scythe,  then 
one  cannot  comprehend  the  desperate  courage  which  risk  to  set 
about  and  occupy  one's  self  here,  while  the  abyss  has  opened 
its  swallow  for  receiving  the  foolhardy. 

"  A  little  above  the  dwelling-houses  is  a  quite  tolerable  plain; 
and  when  one  ask  the  man  why  he  has  not  built  his  houses  there, 
he  answers  that  owing  to  the  snow-slips  it  is  impossible  to  build 
there. 

"  Through  the  valley-streams  the  Afdals  River  comes  from 
the  mountains,  run  in  a  distance  of  only  twenty  yards  from  the 
farm-houses,  and  about  one  hundred  yards  from  the  same  pour 


FOUR  DAYS    WITH  SANNA.  275 

out  itself  with  crash  of  thunder  in  a  mighty  foss.  The  nimble 
of  the  same,  and  that  with  its  hurling  out  caused  pressure  of 
the  air,  is  in  the  summer  so  strong  that  the  dwelling-houses 
seems  to  shiver,  and  all  what  fluids  there  in  open  vessels  get 
placed  on  the  table  is  on  an  incessant  trembling,  moving  almost 
as  on  board  a  ship  in  a  rough  sea.  The  wall  and  windows 
which  turns  to  the  river  are  then  always  moistened  of  the 
whipped  foam,  which  in  small  particles  continually  is  thrown 
back  from  the  foss. 

"  By  the  side  of  this  foss,  in  the  hard  granite  wall  which  it 
moisten,  is  a  mined  gut  (the  author  says  he  can't  call  it  a  road, 
though  it  is  reckoned  for  that),  broad  enough  that  one  man, 
and  in  the  highest  one  small  well-trained  horse,  however  not  by 
each  other's  side,  can  walk  therein.  This  gut,  which  vault  is 
not  so  high  that  an  full-grown  man  can  walk  upright,  is  the 
farm's  only  road  which  rise  to  a  considerable  height. 

"  But  as  this  gut  could  not  get  lightened  in  a  suitable  height, 
one  has  filled  up  or  finished  the  remaining  gap  with  four  timber 
beams,  four  or  five  yards  long,  which  is  close  to  the  gut,  and 
with  its  upper  end  leans  on  a  higher  small  mountain  peak,  which 
beside  this  is  the  fastening  for  the  bridge  over  the  waterfall. 
In  these  beams  is  cut  in  flukes,  just  as  the  steps  of  a  staircase, 
and  when  one  walks  up  these  flukes  one  looks  between  the  beams 
the  frothing  foss  beneath  one's  self,  while  one  get  wrapped  up 
of  its  exhalation  clouds. 

"  The  man  told  me  that  the  pass  also  is  to  be  passed  with 
horse,  the  time  of  the  summer,  and  that  all  then  is  to  be  earned  in 
a  pack-saddle  to  the  farm,  of  his  own  horse,  which  is  accustomed 
to  this  trip.  And  when  one  know  the  small  Lserdalske  horses' 
easiness,  and  the  extraordinary  security  wherewith  they  can  go 
upon  the  most  narrow  path  on  the  edge  of  the  most  dreadful 
precipices,  in  that  they  place  or  cast  the  feet  so  in  front  of  each 
other  that  no  path  is  too  narrow  for  them,  then  it  seems  a  little 
less  surprising. 

"  From  the  Vetti  farm  continues  the  pass  in  a  distance  of 
about  twenty-one  English  miles,  so  that  the  whole  pass,  then,  is 
a  little  more  than  twenty-four  miles,  and  shall  on  the  other  side 
of  the  farm  be  still  more  narrow,  more  difficult,  and  more  dread- 
ful The  farmer  himself  and  his  people  must  often  go  there  to 
the  woods,  and  for  other  things  for  his  farm.  There  belongs  to 
this  farm  most  excellent  soeter  and  mountain  fields,  wherefore 
the  cattle  begetting  is  here  of  great  importance ;  and  also  the 
most  excellent  tract  of  firs  belong  to  this  farm. 

"  I  was  curious  to  know  how  one  had  to  behave  from  here  to 
get  the  dead  buried,  when  it  was  impossible  that  two  men  could 
walk  by  the  side  of  each  other  through  the  pass,  and  I  did  even 
not  see  how  one  could  carry  any  coffin  on  horseback.  I  got  the 
following  information  :  The  corpse  is  to  be  laid  on  a  thin  board, 


276        NORWAY,  DENMARK,   AND    GERMANY. 

in  which  there  is  bored  holes  in  both  ends  in  which  there  is  to 
be  put  handles  of  rope ;  to  this  board  is  the  corpse  to  be  tied, 
wrapped  up  in  its  linen  cloth.  And  now  one  man  in  the  front 
and  one  behind  carry  it  through  the  pass  to  the  farm  Gjelde, 
and  here  it  is  to  be  laid  into  the  coffin,  and  in  the  common 
manner  brought  to  the  churchyard.  If  any  one  die  in  the  win- 
ter, and  the  bottom  of  the  pass  must  be  impassable  then  as  well 
as  in  the  spring  and  in  the  autumn,  one  must  try  to  keep  the 
corpse  in  an  hard  frozen  state,  which  is  not  difficult,  till  it  can 
be  brought  down  in  the  above-mentioned  manner. 

"  A  still  more  strange  and  sad  manner  was  used  once  at  a 
cottager  place  called  Vermelien.  This  place  is  lying  in  the  little 
valley  which  border  to  the  Vetti's  field.  Its  situation  by  the 
river  deep  down  in  the  pass  is  exceedingly  horrid,  and  it  has 
none  other  road  or  path  than  a  very  steep  and  narrow  foot-path 
along  the  mountain  wall  side  with  the  most  dreadful  precipice 
as  by  the  Vetti. 

"  Since  the  cottager  people  here  generally  had  changed,  no 
one  had  dead  there.  It  happened,  then,  the  first  time  a  boy,  on 
seventeen  years  old,  died.  One  did  not  do  one's  self  any  hesi- 
tation about  the  manner  to  bring  him  to  his  grave,  and  they 
made  a  coffin  in  the  house.  The  corpse  was  put  in  the  coffin, 
and  then  the  coffin  brought  outside ;  and  first  now  one  did  see 
with  consternation  that  it  was  not  possible  to  carry  the  corpse 
with  them  in  this  manner.  What  was  to  do  then  ? 

"  At  last  they  resolved  to  let  the  coffin  be  left  as  a  memento 
mori,  and  to  place  the  dead  upon  a  horse,  his  feet  tied  up  under 
the  belly  of  the  horse ;  against  the  mane  on  the  horse  was  fas- 
tened a  well-stuffed  fodder  bag,  that  the  corpse  may  lean  to  the 
same,  to  which  again  the  corpse  was  tied.  And  so  the  dead 
must  ride  over  the  mountain  to  his  resting-place  by  Fortun's 
church  in  Lyster." 


THE  KATRINA    SAGA. 


"FORK  English  Ladies."  This  was  the  address  on  the 
back  of  a  much-thumbed  envelope,  resting  on  top  of  the 
key-rack  in  the  dining-room  of  our  Bergen  hotel.  If 
"For"  had  been  spelled  correctly,  the  letter  would  not 
have  been  half  so  likely  to  be  read ;  but  that  extra  out- 
sider of  an  r  was  irresistibly  attractive.  The  words  of 
the  letter  itself  were,  if  not  equally  original  in  spelling,  at 
least  as  unique  in  arrangement,  and  altogether  the  adver- 
tisement answered  its  purposes  far  better  than  if  it  had 
been  written  in  good  English.  The  naivete  with  which 
the  writer  went  on  to  say,  "I  do  recommend  me," 
was  delicious ;  and  when  she  herself  appeared  there  was 
something  in  her  whole  personal  bearing  entire!}-  in  keep- 
ing with  the  childlike  and  unconscious  complacency  of  her 
phraseology.  "I  do  recommend  me "  was  written  all 
over  her  face ;  and,  as  things  turned  out,  if  it  had  been 
"  I  do  guarantee  me,"  it  had  not  been  too  strong  an  in- 
dorsement. A  more  tireless,  willing,  thoughtful,  helpful, 
eager,  shrewd  little  creature  than  Katrina  never  chat- 
tered. Looking  back  from  the  last  day  to  the  first  of  my 
acquaintance  with  her,  I  feel  a  remorseful  twinge  as  I 
think  how  near  I  came  to  taking  instead  of  her,  as  mv 
maid  for  a  month's  journeying,  a  stately  young  woman, 
who,  appearing  in  answer  to  my  advertisement,  handed 
me  her  card  with  dignity,  and  begged  my  pardon  for  in- 
quiring precisely  what  it  would  be'  that  she  would  have  to 
do  for  me,  besides  the  turning  of  English  into  Norwegian 
and  vice  versa.  The  contrast  between  this  specific  gravit}- 
and  Katrina's  hearty  and  unreflecting  ' '  I  will  do  my  best 
to  satisf}'  you  in  all  occasions,"  did  not  sufficiently  impress 
me  in  the  outset.  But  manv  a  time  afterward  did  I  recall 


278        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY. 

it,  and  believe  more  than  ever  in  the  doctrine  of  lucky 
stars  and  good  angels. 

When  Katrina  appeared,  punctually  to  the  appointed 
minute,  half  an  hour  before  the  time  for  setting  off,  I  saw 
with  pleasure  that  she  was  wrapped  in  a  warm  cloak  of 
dark  cloth.  I  had  seen  her  before,  flitting  about  in  shawls 
of  various  sorts,  loosely  pinned  at  the  throat  in  a  dis- 
jointed kind  of  way,  which  gave  to  her  appearance  an 
expression  that  I  did  not  like,  —  an  expression  of  desul- 
tory if  not  intermittent  respectability.  But  wrapped  in 
this  heavy  cloak,  she  was  decorum  personified. 

"  Ah,  Katrina,"  I  said,  "  I  am  very  glad  to  see  you  are 
warmly  dressed.  This  summer  you  keep  in  Norway  is  so 
cold,  one  needs  winter  clothes  all  the  time." 

"  Yes,  I  must,"  she  replied.  "  I  get  fever  and  ague  in 
New  York,  and  since  then  it  always  reminds  me.  That 
was  six  years  ago  ;  but  it  reminds  me,  —  the  freezing  at 
my  neck,"  putting  her  hand  to  the  back  of  her  neck. 

It  was  in  New  York,  then,  that  she  had  learned  so  much 
English.  This  explained  everything;  —  the  curious  mix- 
ture of  volubility  and  inaccuracy  and  slang  in  her  speech. 
She  had  been  for  several  months  a  house-servant  in  New 
York,  "  with  an  Irish  lady  ;  such  a  nice  lady.  Her  hus- 
band, he  took  care  of  a  bank :  kept  it  clean,  don't  you 
see,  and  all  such  tings.  And  we  lived  in  the  top  in  the 
eight  story :  we  was  always  going  up  and  down  in  the 
elewator." 

After  this  she  had  been  a  button-hole  maker  in  a  great 
clothing-house,  and  next,  had  married  one  of  her  own 
countrymen  ;  a  nephew,  by  the  way,  of  the  famous  Norwe- 
gian giant  at  Barnum's  Museum,  —  a  fact  which  Katrina 
stated  simply,  without  any  apparent  boast,  adding,  "  My 
husband's  father  were  guyant,  too.  There  be  many  guyants 
in  that  part  of  the  country." 

Perhaps  it  was  wicked,  seeing  that  Katrina  had  had  such 
hopes  of  learning  much  -English  in  her  month  with  me,  not 
to  have  told  her  then  and  there  that  g  in  the  English  word 
ginnt  was  always  soft.  But  I  could  not.  Neither  did  I 
once,  from  first  to  last,  correct  her  inimitable  and  delicious 
pronunciations.  I  confined  my  instructions  to  the  en- 
deavor to  make  her  understand  clearly  the  meanings  of 
words,  and  to  teach  her  true  synonymes  ;  but  as  for  med- 


THE  KATRINA   SAGA.  279 

dling  with  her  pronunciations,  I  would  as  soon  have  been 
caught  trying  to  teach  a  baby  to  speak  plain.     I  fear, 
towards  the  last,  she  began  to  suspect  this,  and  to  be 
half  aware  of  the  not  wholly  disinterested  pleasure  which 
I  took  in  listening  to  her  eager  prattle ;  but  she  did  not 
accuse  me,  and  I  let  her  set  off  for  home  not  one  whit 
wiser  in  the  matter  of  the  sounds  of  the  English  language 
than  she  had  been  when  she  came  away,  except  so  far  as 
she  might  have  unconsciously  caught  them  from  hearing 
me  speak.     It  is  just  as  well :  her  English  is  quite  good 
enough  as  it  is,  for  all  practical  purposes  in  Norwaj',  and 
would  lose  half  its  charm  and  value  to  English-speaking 
people  if  she  were  to  learn  to  say  the  words  as  we  sa}-  them. 
To  set  off  by  boat  from  Bergen  means  to  set  off  by 
boats ;  it  would  not  be  an  idle  addition  to  the  phrase, 
either,  to  saj',  not  onry  by  boats,  but  among  boats,  in, 
out,  over,  and  across  boats  ;  and  one  may  consider  himself 
luck}-  if  he  is  not  called  upon  to  add,  —  the  whole  truth 
being  told,  —  under  boats.     Arriving  at  the  wharf,  he  is 
shown  where   his   steamer  lies,   midway  in  the   harbor ; 
whether  it  be  at  anchor,  or  hoisted  on  a  raft  of  small 
boats,  he  is  at  first  at  a  loss  to  see.     However,  rowing 
alongside,  he  discovers  that  the  raft  of  small  boats  is  only 
a  crowd,  like  any  other  crowd,  of  movable  things  or  crea- 
tures, and  can  be  shoved,  jostled,  pushed  out  of  the  way, 
and  compelled  to  give  room.     A  Norwegian  can  elbow  his 
boat  through  a  tight-packed  mass  of  boats  with  as  dexter- 
ous and  irresistible  force  as  another  man  can  elbow  his 
wa"y  on  foot,  on  dry  land,  in  a  crowd  of  men.     So  long  as 
you  are  sitting  quiet  in  the  middle  of  the  boat,  merely 
swayed    from    side   to   side    by   his   gyrations,   with    no 
sort  of  responsibility  as  to  their  successive  direction,  and 
with  implicit  faith  in  their  being  right,  it  is  all  very  well. 
But  when  jour  Norwegian  springs  up,  confident,  poises 
one  foot  on  the  edge  of  his  own  boat,  the  other  foot  on 
the  edge  of  another  boat,  plants  one  of  his  oars  against 
the  gunwale  of  a  third  boat,  and  rests  the  other  oar  hard 
up  against  the  high  side  of  a  steamboat,  and  then  authorita- 
tively requests  you  to  rise  and  make  pathway  for  yourself 
across  and  between  all  these  oars  and  boats,   and  leap 
varying  chasms  of  water  between  them  and  the  ladder  up 
the  steamer's  side,  dismay  seizes  you,  if  you  are  not  to  the 


280        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

water  born.  I  did  not  hear  of  anybody's  being  drowned 
in  attempting  to  get  on  board  a  Bergen  steamer.  But 
why  somebody  is  not,  every  day  in  the  week,  I  do  not 
know,  if  it  often  happens  to  people  to  thread  and  sur- 
mount such  a  labyrinth  of  small  rocking  boats  as  lay 
around  the  dampskib  "Jupiter,"  in  which  Katrina  and  I 
sailed  for  Christiania. 

The  Northern  nations  of  Europe  seem  to  have  hit  upon 
signally  appropriate  names  for  that  place  of  torment  which 
in  English  is  called  steamboat.  There  are  times  when 
simply  to  pronounce  the  words  dampskib  or  dampbaad  is 
soothing  to  the  nerves  ;  and  nowhere  oftener  than  in  Nor- 
way can  one  be  called  upon  to  seek  such  relief.  It  is 
an  accepted  thing  in  Norway  that  no  steamboat  can  be 
counted  on  either  to  arrive  or  depart  within  one,  two,  or 
three  hours  of  its  advertised  time.  The  guide-books  all 
state  this  fact ;  so  nobody  who,  thus  forewarned,  has 
chosen  to  trust  himself  to  the  dampskib  has  any  right  to 
complain  if  the  whole  plan  of  b,is  journey  is  disarranged 
and  frustrated  by  the  thing's  not  arriving  within  four  hours 
of  the  time  it  had  promised.  But  it  is  not  set  down  in  the 
guide-books,  as  it  ought  to  be,  that  there  is  something  else 
on  which  the  traveller  in  Norwegian  dampskibs  can  place 
no  dependence  whatever ;  and  that  is  the  engaging  before- 
hand of  his  stateroom.  To  have  engaged  a  stateroom 
one  week  beforehand,  positively,  explicitly,  and  then,  upon 
arriving  on  board,  to  be  confronted  by  a  smiling  captain, 
who  states  in  an  off-hand  manner,  as  if  it  were  an  every- 
day occurrence,  that  "  he  is  very  sorry,  but  it  is  impossible 
to  let  you  have  it ; "  and  who,  when  he  is  pressed  for  an 
explanation  of  the  impossibility,  has  no  better  reason  to 
give  than  that  two  gentlemen  wanted  the  stateroom,  and  as 
the  two  gentlemen  could  not  go  in  the  ladies'  cabin,  and 
you,  owing  to  the  misfortune  of  your  sex,  could,  therefore 
the  two  gentlemen  have  the  stateroom,  and  you  will  take 
the  one  remaining  untenanted  berth  in  the  cabin,  —  this  is 
what  may  happen  in  a  Norwegian  dampskib.  If  one  is 
resolute  enough  to  halt  in  the  gangway,  and,  ordering  the 
porters  bearing  the  luggage  to  halt  also,  say  calmly, 
"  Very  well ;  then  I  must  return  to  my  hotel,  and  wait  for 
another  boat,  in  which  I  can  have  a  stateroom  ;  it  would 
be  quite  out  of  the  question,  my  making  the  journey  in  the 


THE  KATRINA  SAGA.  281 

cabin, "  the  captain  will  discover  some  way  of  disposing  of 
the  two  gentlemen,  and  without  putting  them  into  the 
ladies'  cabin  ;  but  this  late  concession,  not  to  the  justice 
of  your  claim,  only  to  your  determination  in  enforcing  it, 
does  not  in  an}*  wise  conciliate  }*our  respect  or  your 
amiability.  The  fact  of  the  imposition  and  unfairness  is 
the  same.  I  ought  to  say,  however,  that  this  is  the  only 
matter  in  which  I  found  unfairness  in  Norwaj*.  In  regard 
to  everything  else  the  Norwegian  has  to  provide  or  to 
sell,  he  is  just  and  honest ;  but  when  it  comes  to  the 
question  of  dampskib  accommodations,  he  seems  to  take 
leave  of  all  his  sense  of  obligation  to  be  either. 

As  I  crept  into  the  narrow  trough  called  a  berth,  in  my 
hardly  won  stateroom,  a  vision  flitted  past  the  door:  a 
tall  and  graceful  figure,  in  a  tight,  shabby  black  gown ;  a 
classic  head,  set  with  the  grace  of  a  lily  on  a  slender  neck  ; 
pale  brown  hair,  put  back,  braided,  and  wound  in  a  knot 
behind,  all  save  a  few  short  curls,  which  fell  lightly  floating 
and  waving  over  a  low  forehead  ;  a  pair  of  honest,  merry 
gray  e}*es,  with  a  swift  twinkle  at  the  corners,  and  a 
sudden  serious  tenderness  in  their  depths  ;  a  straight  nose, 
with  a  nostril  spirited  and  fine  as  an  Arabian's  ;  a  mouth 
of  flawless  beauty,  unless  it  might  be  that  the  upper  lip. 
was  a  trifle  too  short,  but  this  fault  only  added  to  the 
piquancy  of  the  face.  I  lifted  myself  on  my  elbow  to  look 
at  her.  She  was  gone  ;  and  I  sank  back,  thinking  of  the 
pictures  that  the  world  raved  over,  so  few  short  years  ago, 
of  the  lovely  Eugenie.  Here  was  a  face  strangely  like  hers, 
but  with  far  more  fire  and  character,  —  a  Norwegian  girl, 
evidently  poor.  I  was  wondering  if  I  should  see  her  again, 
and  how  I  could  manage  to  set  Katrina  on  her  track,  and 
if  I  could  find  out  who  she  was,  when,  lo,  there  she  stood 
by  my  side,  bending  above  me,  and  saying  something  Nor- 
wegian over  and  over  in  a  gentle  voice;  and  Katrina 
behind  her,  saving,  "  This  is  the  lady  what  has  care  of  all. 
She  do  say,  '  Poor  lad}*,  poor  lad}*,  to  be  so  sick  ! '  She  is 
sorry  that  you  are  sick."  I  gazed  at  her  in  stupefied 
wonder.  This  radiant  creature  the  stewardess  of  a  steam- 
boat! She  was  more  beautiful  near  than  at  a  distance. 
I  am  sure  I  have  never  seen  so  beautiful  a  woman.  And 
coming  nearer,  one  could  see  clearly,  almost  as  radiant  as 
her  physical  beauty,  the  beauty  of  a  fine  and  sweet  nature 


282        NORWAY,  DENMARK,   AND   GERMANY. 

shining  through.  Her  smile  was  transcendent.  I  am  not 
over-easy  to  be  stirred  by  women's  fair  looks.  Seldom  I 
see  a  woman's  face  that  gives  me  unalloyed  pleasure. 
Faces  are  half-terrifying  things  to  one  who  studies  them, 
such  paradoxical  masks  are  they ;  onl}-  one  half  mask, 
and  the  other  half  bared  secrets  of  a  lifetime.  Their 
mere  physical  beauty,  however  great  it  may  be,  is  so 
underlaid  and  overlaid  by  tokens  and  traces  and  scars  of 
things  in  which  the  flesh  and  blood  of  it  have  played  part 
that  a  fair  face  can  rarely  be  more  than  half  fair.  But 
here  was  a  face  with  beauty  such  as  the  old  Greeks  put 
into  marble  ;  and  shining  through  it  the  honesty  and  inno- 
cence of  an  untaught  child,  the  good-will  and  content  of  a 
faithful  working-girl,  and  the  native  archness  of  a  healthful 
maiden.  I  am  not  unaware  that  all  this  must. have  the 
sound  of  an  invention,  and  there  being  no  man  to  bear 
witness  to  my  tale,  except  such  as  have  sailed  in  the  Nor- 
wegian dampskib  "  Jupiter,"  it  will  not  be  much  believed ; 
nevertheless,  I  shall  tell  it.  Not  being  the  sort  of  artist  to 
bring  the  girl's  face  away  in  a  portfolio,  the  only  thing  left 
for  me  is  to  try  to  set  it  in  the  poor  portraiture  of  words. 
Poor  enough  portraiture  it  is  that  words  can  fashion,  even 
for  things  less  subtle  than  faces,  —  a  day  or  a  sky,  a  swift 
passion  or  a  thought.  Words  seem  always  to  those  who 
work  with  them  more  or  less  failures  ;  but  most  of  all  are 
they  impotent  and  disappointing  when  a  face  is  to  be  told. 
Yet  I  shall  not  cast  away  my  sketch  of  the  beautiful  Anna. 
It  is  the  only  one  which  will  ever  be  made  of  her.  Now 
that  I  think  of  it,  however,  there  is  one  testimon}"  to  be 
added  to  mine,  —  a  testimony  of  much  weight,  too,  taken 
in  the  connection,  for  it  was  of  such  involuntariness. 

On  the  second  day  of  my  voyage  in  the  "  Jupiter,"  in 
the  course  of  a  conversation  with  the  captain,  I  took  oc- 
casion to  speak  of  the  good-will  and  efficiency  of  his  stew- 
ardess. He  assented  warmly  to  my  praise  of  her  ;  adding 
that  she  was  born  of  very  poor  parents,  and  had  little  edu- 
cation herself  beyond  knowing  how  to  read  and  write,  but 
was  a  person  of  rare  goodness. 

I  then  said,  "  And  of  very  rare  beauty,  also.  I  have 
never  seen  a  more  beautiful  face." 

"Yes,"  he  replied  ;  "  there  is  something  very  not  com- 
mon about  her.  Her  face  is  quite  antic."  "Antique,"  he 


THE  KATR1NA  SAGA.  283 

meant,  but  for  the  first  few  seconds  I  could  not  imagine 
what  it  was  he  had  intended.  He  also,  then,  had  recog- 
nized, as  this  phrase  shows,  the  truly  classic  quality  of 
the  girl's  beautj* ;  and  he  is  the  only  witness  I  am  able  to 
bring  to  prove  that  my  description  of  her  face  and  figure 
and  look  and  bearing  are  not  an  ingenious  fable  wrought 
out  of  nothing. 

From  Katrina,  also,  there  came  testimonies  to  Anna's 
rare  quality. 

"  I  have  been  in  long  speech  with  Anna,"  she  said  be- 
fore we  had  been  at  sea  a  day.  ' '  I  tink  she  will  come  to 
Bergen,  by  my  husband  and  me.  She  can  be  trusted ;  I 
can  tell  in  one  firstest  minute  vat  peoples  is  to  be  trusted. 
She  is  so  polite  always,  but  she  passes  ghentlemens  with- 
out speaking,  except  she  has  business.  I  can  tell." 

Shrewd  Katrina  !  Her  husband  has  a  sort  of  restaurant 
and  billiard-room  in  Bergen, — a  place  not  over-creditable, 
I  fear,  although  keeping  within  the  pale  of  respectability. 
It  is  a  sore  trial  to  Katrina,  his  doing  this,  especially 
the  selling  of  liquor.  She  had  several  times  refused  her 
consent  to  his  going  into  the  business,  "  but  dis  time,"  she 
said,  "  he  had  it  before  I  knowed  anyting,  don't  you  see? 
He  did  n't  tell  me.  I  always  tink  dere  is  de  wifes  and 
children,  and  maybe  de  mens  don't  take  home  no  bread ; 
and  den  to  sit  dere  and  drink,  it  is  shame,  don't  you  see? 
But  if  he  don't  do,  some  other  mans  would ;  so  tere  it  is, 
don't  you  see  ?  And  tere  is  money  in  it,  you  see."  Poor 
Katrina  had  tried  in  vain  to  shelter  herself  and  appease 
her  conscience  by  this  old  sophistry.  Her  pride  and  self- 
respect  still  so  revolted  at  the  trade  that  she  would  not  go 
to  the  place  to  stay.  "He  not  get  me  to  go  tere.  He 
not  want  me,  either.  I  would  not  work  in  such  a  place." 

But  she  had  no  scruples  about  endeavoring  to  engage 
Anna  as  a  waiter- girl  for  the  place. 

"  She  will  be  by  my  husband  and  me,"  she  said,  "  and 
it  is  always  shut  every  night  at  ten  o'clock  ;  and  my  hus- 
band is  very  strict  man.  He  will  have  all  right.  She  can 
have  all  her  times  after  dat ;  and  here  she  have  only  four 
dollars  a  mont,  and  my  husband  gives  more  tan  dat.  And 
I  shall  teach  to  her  English  ;  I  gives  her  one  hour  every 
day.  Dat  is  great  for  her,  for  she  vill  go  to  America  next 
year.  If  she  can  English  speak,  she  get  twice  the  money 


284        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

in  America.  Oh,  ven  I  go  to  America,  I  did  not  know  de 
name  of  one  ting  ;  and  every  night  I  cry  and  cry  ;  I  tink 
I  never  learn  ;  but  dat  Irish  lady  I  live  by,  she  vas  so  kind 
to  me  as  iny  own  mother.  Oh,  I  like  Irish  peoples ;  the 
Irish  and  the  Americans,  dey  are  what  I  like  best.  I 
don't  like  de  English  ;  and  Chermans,  I  don't  like  dem  ;  dey 
vill  take  all  out  of  your  pocket.  She  is  intended ; *  and 
dat  is  good.  When  one  are  intended  one  must  be  careful ; 
and  if  he  is  one  you  love,  ten  you  don't  vant  to  do  any- 
ting  else  ;  and  her  sweetheart  is  a  nice  young  fellow.  He 
is  in  the  engyne  in  a  Hamburg  boat.  She  has  been 
speaking  by  me  about  him." 

The  dampskib  "  Jupiter  "  is  a  roller.  It  is  a  marvel  how 
an}rthing  not  a  log  can  roll  at  such  a  rate.  The  stateroom 
berths  being  built  across  instead  of  lengthwise,  the  result 
is  a  perpetual  tossing  of  heads  versus  feet.  As  Katrina 
expressively  put  it,  "It  is  first  te  head,  and  den  te  feets 
up.  Dat  is  te  worstest.  Dat  makes  te  difference." 

Ill,  helpless,  almost  as  tight-wedged  in  as  a  knife-blade 
shut  in  its  handle,  I  lay  in  my  trough  a  day  and  a  night. 
The  swinging  port-hole,  through  which  I  feebly  looked, 
made  a  series  of  ever-changing  vignettes  of  the  bits  of 
water,  sky,  land  it  showed :  moss-crowned  hillocks  of 
stone ;  now  and  then  a  red  roof,  or  a  sloop  scudding  by. 
The  shore  of  Norway  is  a  kaleidoscope  of  land,  rock,  and 
water  broken  up.  To  call  it  shore  at  all  seems  half  a  mis- 
nomer. I  have  never  heard  of  a  census  of  the  islands  on 
the  Norway  coast,  but  it  would  be  a  matter  of  great  inter- 
est to  know  if  it  needs  the  decimals  of  millions  to  reckon 
them.  This  would  not  be  hard  to  be  believed  by  one  who 
has  sailed  two  days  and  two  nights  in  their  labyrinths. 
They  are  a  more  distinctive  feature  in  the  beaut}-  of  Nor- 
way's seaward  face  than  even  her  majestic  mountain 
ranges.  They  have  as  much  and  as  changing  beauty  of 
color  as  those,  and,  added  to  the  subtle  and  exhaustless 
beauty  of  changing  color,  they  have  the  still  subtler  charm 
of  that  mysterious  combination  of  rest  and  restlessness, 
stillness  and  motion,  solidity  and  evanescence,  which  is 
the  dower  of  all  islands,  and  most  of  all  of  the  islands  of 
outer  seas.  Even  more  than  from  the  stern  solemnit}*  of 
their  mountain-walled  fjords  must  the  Norwegians  have 
1  Betrothed. 


THE  KATRINA  SAGA.  285 

drawn  their  ancient  inspirations,  I  imagine,  from  the  woo- 
ing, baffling,  luring,  forbidding,  locking  and  unlocking, 
and  never-revealing  vistas,  channels,  gates,  and  barriers 
of  their  islands.  The}-  are  round  and  soft  and  mossy  as 
hillocks  of  sphagnum  in  a  green  marsh.  You  may  sink 
above  your  ankles  in  the  moist,  delicious  verdure,  which 
looks  from  the  sea  like  a  mere  mantle  lightly  flung  over 
the  rock.  Or  they  are  bare  and  gray  and  unbroken,  as  if 
coated  in  mail  of  stone  ;  and  you  might  clutch  in  vain  for 
so  much  as  the  help  of  a  crevice  or  a  shrub,  if  you  were 
cast  on  their  sides.  Some  lie  level  and  low,  with  oases  of 
vividest  green  in  their  hollows  ;  these  lift  and  loom  in  the 
noon  or  the  twilight,  with  a  mirage  which  the  desert  can- 
not outdo.  Some  rise  up  in  precipices  of  sudden  wall, 
countless  Gibraltars,  which  no  mortal  power  can  scale, 
and  only  wild  creatures  with  tireless  wings  can  approach. 
They  are  lashed  by  foaming  waves,  and  the  echoes  peal 
like  laughter  among  them  ;  the  tide  brings  them  all  it  has  ; 
the  morning  sun  lights  them  up,  top  after  top,  like  beacons 
of  its  wav  out  to  sea,  and  leaves  them  again  at  night,  lin- 
geringly,  one  by  one ;  changing  them  otteu  into  the  sem- 
blance of  jewels  by  the  last  red  rays  of  its  sinking  light. 
They  seem,  as  you  sail  swiftly  among  them,  to  be  sailing 
too,  a  flotilla  of  glittering  kingdoms ;  j-our  escort,  your 
convoy ;  shifting  to  right,  to  left,  in  gorgeous  parade  of 
skilful  display,  as  for  a  pageant.  When  you  anchor,  they 
too  are  of  a  sudden  at  rest ;  solid,  substantial  land  again, 
wooing  you  to  take  possession.  There  are  myriads  of 
them  still  unknown,  untrodden,  and  sure  to  remain  so  for- 
ever, no  matter  how  long  the  world  may  last ;  as  sure  as 
if  the  old  spells  were  true,  and  the  gods  had  made  them 
invincible  by  a  charm,  or  lonely  under  an  eternal  curse. 
At  the  mouths  of  the  great  fjords  they  seem  sometimes 
to  have  fallen  back  and  into  line,  as  if  to  do  honor  to 
whomever  might  come  sailing  in.  They  must  have 
greatly  helped  the  splendor  of  the  processions  of  viking 
ships,  a  thousand  years  ago,  in  the  days  when  a  viking 
thought  nothing  of  setting  sail  for  the  south  or  the  east 
with  six  or  seven  hundred  ships  in  his  fleet.  If  their 
birch-trees  were  as  plumy  then  as  now,  there  was  nothing 
finer  than  they  in  all  that  a  viking  adorned  his  ships  with, 
not  even  the  gilt  dragons  at  the  prow. 


286         NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

Before  the  close  of  the  second  day  of  our  voyage,  the 
six  passengers  in  the  ladies'  cabin  had  reached  the  end  of 
their  journey  and  left  the  boat.  By  way  of  atonement  for 
his  first  scheming  to  rob  me  of  my  stateroom,  the  captain 
now  magnanimously  offered  to  me  the  whole  of  the  ladies' 
cabin,  for  which  he  had  no  further  use.  How  gladly  I 
accepted  it !  How  gleefully  I  watched  my  broad  bed 
being  made  on  a  sofa,  lengthwise  the  rolling  ' '  Jupiter  "  ! 
How  pleased  was  Katrina,  how  cheen'  the  beautiful 
stewardess ! 

"Good-night!  Good-night!  Sleep  well!  Sleep  well!" 
they  both  said  as  they  left  me. 

"  Now  it  will  be  different;  not  te  head  and  feets  any 
more.  De  oder  way  is  bestest,"  added  Katrina,  as  she 
lurched  out  of  the  room. 

How  triumphantly  I  locked  the  door !  How  well  I  slept ! 
All  of  which  would  be  of  no  consequence  here,  except  that 
it  makes  such  a  background  for  what  followed.  Out  of  a 
sleep  sound  as  only  the  sleep  of  one  worn  out  b}*  seasick- 
ness can  be,  I  was  roused  by  a.  dash  of  water  in  my  face. 
Too  bewildered  at  first  to  understand  what  had  happened, 
I  sat  up  in  bed  quickly,  and  thereby  brought  my  face  con- 
siderably nearer  the  port-hole,  directly  above  my  pillow, 
just  in  time  to  receive  another  full  dash  of  water  in  my 
ver}-  teeth ;  and  water  by  no  means  clean,  either,  as  I  in- 
stantly perceived.  The  situation  explained  itself.  The 
port-hole  had  not  been  shut  tight ;  the  decks  were  being 
washed.  Swash,  swash,  it  came,  with  frightful  dexterity, 
aimed,  it  would  seem,  at  that  very  port-hole,  and  nowhere 
else.  I  sprang  up,  seized  the  handle  of  the  port-hole  win- 
dow, and  tried  to  tighten  it.  In  my  ignorance  and  fright 
I  turned  it  the  wrong  way ;  in  poured  the  dirty  water. 
There  stood  I,  clapping  the  window  to  with  all  my  might, 
but  utterly  unable  either  to  fasten  it  or  to  hold  it  tight 
enough  to  keep  out  the  water.  Calling  for  help  was  use- 
less, even  if  my  voice  could  have  been  heard  above  the 
noise  of  the  boat ;  the  door  of  m}-  cabin  was  locked. 
Swash,  swash,  in  it  came,  more  arid  more,  and  dirtier  and 
dirtier ;  trickling  down  the  back  of  the  red  velvet  sofa, 
drenching  1113-  pillows  and  sheets,  and  spattering  me.  One 
of  the  few  things  one  never  ceases  being  astonished  at  in 
this  world  is  the  length  a  minute  can  seem  when  one  is 


THE  KATRINA   SAGA.  287 

uncomfortable.  It  could  n't  have  been  many  minutes,  but 
it  seemed  an  hour,  before  I  had  succeeded  in  partially  fas- 
tening that  port-hole,  unlocking  that  cabin  door,  and  bring- 
ing Anna  to  the  rescue.  Before  she  arrived  the  dirty 
swashes  bad  left  the  first  port-hole  and  gone  to  the  second, 
which,  luckily,  had  been  fastened  tight,  and  all  danger  was 
over.  But  if  I  had  been  afloat  and  in  danger  of  drowning, 
her  sympathy  could  not  have  been  greater.  She  came 
running,  her  feet  bare,  —  very  white  they  were,  too,  and 
rosy  pink  on  the  outside  edges,  like  a  baby's,  I  noticed,  — 
and  her  gown  but  partly  on.  It  was  only  half-past  four, 
and  she  had  been,  no  doubt,  as  sound  asleep  as  I.  With 
comic  pantomime  of  distress,  and  repeated  exclamations 
of  "  Poor  lady,  poor  lady  !  "  which  phrase  I  already  knew 
by  heart,  she  gathered  up  the  wet  bed,  made  me  another 
in  a  dry  corner,  and  then  vanished ;  and  I  heard  her  tell- 
ing the  tale  of  my  disaster,  in  excited  tones,  to  Katrina, 
who  soon  appeared  with  a  look  half  sympathy,  half  amuse- 
ment, on  her  face. 

"  Now,  dat  is  great  tings,"  she  said,  giving  the  innocent 
port-hole  another  hard  twist  at  the  handle.  "  I  tink  you 
vill  be  glad  ven  you  comes  to  Christiania.  Dey  say  it  vill 
be  tere  at  ten,  but  I  tink  it  is  only  shtories." 

It  was  not.  Already  we  were  well  up  in  the  smooth- 
ness and  shelter  of  the  beautiful  Christiania  Fjord,  —  a 
great  bay,  which  is  in  the  beginning  like  a  sea  looking 
southward  into  an  ocean;  then  reaches  up  northward, 
counting  its  miles  by  scores,  shooting  its  shining  inlets  to 
right  and  left,  narrowing  and  yielding  itself  more  and 
more  to  the  embrace  of  the  land,  till,  suddenly,  headed 
off  by  a  knot  of  hills,  it  turns  around,  and  as  if  seeking 
the  outer  sea  it  has  left  behind  runs  due  south  for  miles, 
making  the  peninsula  of  Nesodden.  On  this  peninsula  is 
the  little  town  of  Drobak,  where  thirty  thousand  pounds' 
worth  of  ice  is  stored  every  winter,  to  be  sold  in  London 
as  "Wenham  Lake  ice."  This  ice  was  in  summer  the 
water  of  countless  little  lakes.  The  region  round  about 
the  Christiania  Fjord  is  set  full  of  them,  lily -grown  and 
fir-shaded.  Once  they  freeze  over,  they  are  marked  for 
their  destiny  ;  the  snow  is  kept  from  them  ;  if  the  surface 
be  too  much  roughened  it  is  planed  ;  then  it  is  lined  off 
into  great  squares,  cut  out  by  an  ice-plough,  pried  up  by 


288        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

wedges,  loaded  on  carts,  and  carried  to  the  ice-honses. 
There  it  is  packed  into  solid  bulk,  with  layers  of  sawdust 
between  to  prevent  the  blocks  from  freezing  together 
again. 

The  fjord  was  so  glassy  smooth,  as  we  sailed  up,  that 
even  the  "  Jupiter"  could  not  roll,  but  glided  ;  and  seemed 
to  try  to  hush  its  jarring  sounds,  as  if  holding  its  breath, 
with  sense  of  the  shame  it  was  to  disturb  such  sunny  silence. 
The  shores  on  either  hand  were  darkly  wooded  ;  here  and 
there  a  country-seat  on  higher  ground,  with  a  gay  flag 
floating  out.  No  Norwegian  house  is  complete  without 
its  flagstaff.  On  Sundays,  on  all  holidays,  on  the  birth- 
days of  members  of  the  famil}*,  and  on  all  days  when 
guests  are  expected  at  the  house,  the  flag  is  run  up.  This 
pretty  custom  gives  a  festal  air  to  all  places,  since  one 
can  never  walk  far  without  coining  on  a  house  that  keeps 
either  a  birthday  or  a  guest-day. 

There  seemed  almost  a  mirage  on  the  western  shore  of 
the  bay.  The  captain,  noticing  this,  called  my  attention 
to  it,  and  said  it  was  often  to  be  seen  on  the  Norway 
fjords,  "  but  it  was  always  on  the  head."  In  reply  to  my 
puzzled  look,  he  went  on  to  say,  by  way  of  making  it  per- 
fectly clear,  that  "the  mountains  stood  always  on  their 
heads;"  that  is,  "their  heads  down  to  the  heads  of  the 
other  mountains."  He  then  spoke  of  the  strange  looming 
of  the  water-line  often  seen  in  Holland,  wnere  he  had  trav- 
elled ;  but  where,  he  said  he  never  wished  to  go  again, 
they  were  "  such  dirty  people."  This  accusation  brought 
against  the  Dutch  was  indeed  startling.  I  exclaimed  in 
surprise,  saying  that  the  world  gave  the  Dutch  credit  for 
being  the  cleanliest  of  people.  Yes,  he  said,  they  did 
scrub ;  it  was  to  be  admitted  that  the}'  kept  their  houses 
clean ;  "  but  they  do  put  the  spitkin  on  the  table  when 
they  eat." 

' '  Spitkin ,"  cried  I.  ' '  What  is  that  ?  You  do  not  mean 
spittoon,  surely  ?  " 

"Yes,  yes,  that  is  it;  the  spitkin  in  which  to  spit.  It 
is  high,  like  what  we  keep  to  put  flowers  in,  —  so  high," 
holding  his  hand  about  twelve  inches  from  the  table ; 
"  made  just  like  what  we  put  for  flowers  ;  and  they  put  it 
always  on  the  table  when  they  are  eating.  I  have  mysolf 
seen  it.  And  they  do  eat  and  spit,  and  eat  and  spit, 


THE  KATRINA  SAGA.  289 

ugh  !  "  And  the  captain  shook  himself  with  a  great  shud- 
der, as  well  he  might,  at  the  recollection.  "I  do  never 
wish  to  see  Holland  again." 

I  took  the  opportunity  then  to  praise  the  Norwegian 
spitkiu,  which  is  a  most  ingenious  device ;  and  not  only 
ingenious,  but  wholesome  and  cleanly.  It  is  an  open 
brass  pan,  some  four  inches  in  depth,  filled  with  broken 
twigs  of  green  juniper.  These  are  put  in  fresh  and 
clean  every  day,  —  an  invention,  no  doubt,  of  poverty 
in  the  first  place ;  for  the  Norwegian  has  been  hard 
pressed  for  centuries,  and  has  learned  to  set  his  fragrant 
juniper  and  fir  boughs  to  all  manner  of  uses  unknown 
in  other  countries  ;  for  instance,  spreading  them  down  for 
outside  door-mats,  in  country-houses,  —  another  pretty 
and  cleanly  custom.  But  the  juniper-filled  spitkin  is  the 
triumph  of  them  all,  and  he  would  be  a  benefactor  who 
would  introduce  its  civilization  into  all  countries.  The 
captain  seemed  pleased  with  my  commendation,  and  said 
hesitatingly,  — 

"There  is  a  tale,  that.  They  do  say, — excuse  me," 
bowing  apologetically,  —  "  they  do  say  that  it  is  in  Amer- 
ica spitted  everywhere  ;  and  that  an  American  who  was 
in  Norway  did  see  the  spitkin  on  the  stove,  but  did  not 
know  it  was  spitkin." 

This  part  of  the  story  I  could  most  easily  credit,  having 
myself  looked  wonderingly  for  several  days  at  the  pretty 
little  oval  brass  pan,  filled  with  juniper  twigs,  standing 
on  the  hearth  of  the  turret-like  stove  in  1213-  Bergen  bed- 
room, and  having  finally  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
juniper  twigs  must  be  kept  there  for  kindlings. 

"So  he  did  spit  everywhere  on  the  stove ;  it  was  all 
around  spitted.  And  when  the  servant  came  in  he  said, 
'  Take  away  that  thing  with  green  stuff;  I  want  to  spit  in 
that  place.' " 

The  captain  told  this  story  with  much  hesitancy  of  man- 
ner and  repeated  "  excuse  me's  ;  "  but  he  was  reassured  by 
my  hearty  laughter,  and  my  confession  that  m}'  own  igno- 
rance of  the  proper  use  of  the  juniper  spitkin  had  been 
quite  equal  to  my  countryman's. 

.     Christiania  looks  well,  as  one  approaches  it  by  water ; 

it  is  snugged  in  on  the  lower  half  of  an  amphitheatre  of 

high  wooded  hills,  which  open  as  they  recede,   showing 

19 


290        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

ravines,  and  suggesting  countless  delightful  ways  up  and 
out  into  the  country.  Many  ships  lie  in  the  harbor;  on 
either  hand  are  wooded  peninsulas  and  islands  ;  and  every- 
where are  to  be  seen  light  or  bright-colored  country-houses . 
The  first  expression  of  the  city  itself,  as  one  enters  it, 
is  disappointingly  modern,  if  one  has  his  head  full  of  Har- 
alds  and  Olafs,  and  expects  to  see  some  traces  of  the  old 
Osloe.  The  Christiania  of  to-day  is  new,  as  newness  is 
reckoned  in  Norway,  for  it  dates  back  only  to  the  middle 
of  the  sixteenth  century  ;  but  it  is  as  characteristically  Nor- 
wegian as  if  it  were  older,  —  a  pleasanter  place  to  sta}'  in 
than  Bergen,  and  a  much  better  starting-point  for  Norway 
travel. 

"  A  cautious  guest, 

When  he  comes  to  his  hostel, 
Speaketh  but  little ; 

With  his  ears  he  listeneth, 

With  his  eyes  he  looketh : 
Thus  the  wise  learneth," 

an  old  Norwegian  song  says. 

When  walking  through  the  labyrinths  of  the  Victoria 
Hotel  in  Christiania,  and  listening  with  my  ears,  I  heard 
dripping  and  plashing  water,  and  when,  looking  with  my 
eyes,  I  saw  long  dark  corridors,  damp  courtyards,  and 
rooms  on  which  no  sun  ever  had  shone,  I  spoke  little,  but 
forthwith  drove  away  in  search  of  airier,  sunnier,  drier 
quarters.  There  were  many  mysterious  inside  balconies 
of  beautiful  gay  flowers  at  the  Victoria,  but  they  did  not 
redeem  it. 

"  I  tink  dat  place  is  like  a  prison  more  tan  it  is  like  a 
hdtle,"  said  Katrina,  as  we  drove  away  ;  in  which  she  was 
quite  right.  "•  I  don't  see  vhy  tey  need  make  a  hdtle  like 
dat ;  nobody  vould  stay  in  prison  !  "  At  the  Hotel  Scan- 
dinavie,  a  big  room  with  six  sides  and  five  windows 
pleased  her  better.  "  Dis  is  vat  you  like,"  she  said  ;  "  here 
tere  is  light." 

Light '!  If  there  had  only  been  darkness !  In  the  Nor- 
way summer  one  comes  actually  to  yearn  for  a  little 
Christian  darkness  to  go  to  bed  by  ;  much  as  he  may  crave 
a  stronger*  sun  by  day,  to  keep  him  warm,  he  would  like  to 
have  a  reasonable  night-time  for  sleeping.  At  first  there 
is  a  stimulus,  and  a  weird  sort  of  triumphant  sense  of 


THE  KATR1NA   SAGA.  291 

outwitting  Nature,  in  finding  one's  self  able  to  read  or  to 
write  by  the  sun's  light  till  nearly  midnight  of  the  clock. 
But  presently  it  becomes  clear  that  the  outwitting  is  oil  the 
other  side.  What  avails  it  that  there  is  light  enough  for 
one  to  write  by-  at  ten  o'clock  at  night,  if  he  is  tired 
out,  does  not  want  to  write,  and  longs  for  nothing  but  to 
go  to  sleep?  If  it  were  dark,  and  he  longed  to  write,  noth- 
ing would  be  easier  than  to  light  candles  and  write  all 
night,  if  he  chose  and  could  pay  for  his  candles.  But 
neither  money  nor  ingenuit}-  can  compass  for  him  a  normal 
darkness  to  sleep  in.  The  Norwegian  house  is  one-half 
•window :  in  their  long  winters  they  need  all  the  sun  they 
can  get ;  not  an  outside  blind,  not  an  inside  shutter,  not  a 
dark  shade,  to  be  seen  ;  streaming,  flooding,  radiating  in 
and  round  about  the  rooms,  comes  the  light,  welcome  or 
unwelcome,  early  and  late.  And  to  the  words  "early" 
and  "  late  "  there  are  in  a  Norway  summer  new  meanings  : 
the  early  light  of  the  summer  morning  sets  in  about  half- 
past  two  :  the  late  light  of  the  summer  evening  fades  into 
a  luminous  twilight  about  eleven.  Enjoj'ment  of  this  spe- 
cies of  perpetual  day  soon  comes  to  an  end.  After  the 
traveller  has  written  home  to  everybody  once  by  broad 
daylight  at  ten  o'clock,  the  fun  of  the  thing  is  over :  nor- 
mal sleepiness  begins  to  hunger  for  its  rights,  and  dissatis- 
faction takes  the  place  of  wondering  amusement.  This 
dissatisfaction  reaches  its  climax  in  a  few  days ;  then,  if 
he  is  wise,  the  traveller  provides  himself  with  several 
pieces  of  dark  green  cambric,  which  he  pins  up  at  his 
windows  at  bedtime,  thereby  making  it  possible  to  get 
seven  or  eight  hours'  rest  for  his  tired  eyes.  But  the 
green  cambric  will  not  shut  out  sounds  ;  and  he  is  lucky 
if  he  is  not  kept  awake  until  one  or  two  o'clock  every 
night  by  the  unceasing  tread  and  loud  chatter  of  the  cheer- 
ful Norwegians,  who  have  been  forced  to  form  the  habit  of 
sitting  up  half  their  night-time  to  get  in  the  course  of  a 
year  their  full  quota  of  daytime. 

"I  tink  King  Ring  lived  not  far  from  dis  place,"  said 
Katrina,  stretching  her  head  out  of  first  one  and  then 
another  of  the  five  windows,  and  looking  up  and  down  the 
busy  streets ;  "  not  in  Christiania,  but  I  tink  not  very  far 
away.  Did  ever  you  hear  of  King  Ring  ?  Oh,  dat  is  our 
best  story  in  all  Norway,  —  te  saga  of  King  Ring  !  " 


292        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

"  Cannot  you  tell  it  to  me,  Katrina?"  said  I,  trying  to 
speak  as  if  I  had  never  heard  of  King  Ring. 

"Veil,  King  Ring,  he  loved  Ingeborg.  I  cannot  tell; 
I  do  not  remember.  My  father,  you  see,  —  not  my  right 
father,  but  my  father  the  hatter,  he  whose  little  home  I 
showed  you  in  Bergen,  —  he  used  to  take  books  out  vere 
you  pay  so  much  for  one  week,  you  see ;  and  I  only  get 
half  an  hour,  maj'be,  or  few  minutes,  but  I  steal  de  book, 
and  read  all  vat  I  can.  I  vas  only  little  den :  oh,  it  is 
years  ago.  But  it  is  our  best  story  in  all  Norwa}-.  Inge- 
borg was  beauty,  you  see,  and  all  in  te  kings'  families  vat 
vanted  her :  many  ghentlemens,  and  Ring,  he  killed  three 
or  four  I  tink  ;  and  den  after  he  killed  dem  three  or  four, 
den  he  lost  her,  after  all,  don't  you  see ;  and  tat  was  te 
fun  of  it." 

"  But  I  don't  think  that  was  funny  at  all,  Katrina," 
I  said.  "  I  don't  believe  King  Ring  thought  it  so." 

"  No,  I  don't  tink,  either;  but  den,  you  see,  he  had  all 
killed  for  nothing,  and  den  he  lost  her  himself.  I  tink  it 
was  on  the  ice :  it  broke.  A  stranger  told  dem  not  to 
take  the  ice ;  but  King  Ring,  he  would  go.  I  tink  dat 
was  te  way  it  was." 

It  was  plain  that  Katrina's  reminiscences  of  her  stolen 
childish  readings  of  the  Frithiof's  Saga  were  incorrect  as 
well  as  fragmentar}',  but  her  eager  enthusiasm  over  it  was 
delicious.  Her  face  kindled  as  she  repeated,  "Oh,  it  is 
our  best  story  in  all  Norway  !  "  and  when  I  told  her  that 
the  next  day  she  should  go  to  a  circulating  library  and  get 
a  copy  of  the  book  and  read  it  to  me,  her  eyes  actually 
flashed  with  pleasure. 

Early  the  next  morning  she  set  off.  A  nondescript  rov- 
ing commission  she  bore  :  "  A  copy  of  the  Frithiof's  Saga 
in  Norwegian,  [how  guiltily  I  feared  she  might  stumble 
upon  it  in  an  English  translation !  ]  and  anything  in  the 
way  of  fruit  or  vegetables."  These  were  her  instructions. 
It  was  an  hour  before  she  came  back,  flushed  with  victory, 
sure  of  her  success  and  of  my  satisfaction.  She  burst 
into  the  room,  brandishing  in  one  hand  two  turnips  and 
a  carrot ;  in  the  other  she  hugged  up  in  front  of  her  a 
newspaper,  bursting  and  red-stained,  full  of  fresh  rasp- 
berries ;  under  her  left  arm,  held  very  tight,  a  little  old 
copy  of  the  Frithiof's  Saga.  Breathless,  she  dropped 


THE  KATRINA   SAGA.  293 

the  raspberries  down,  newspaper  and  all,  in  a  rolling  pile 
on  the  table,  exclaiming,  "I  tink  I  shall  not  get  tese 
home,  after  I  get  te  oders  in  my  oder  hand  !  Are  tese 
what  you  like?  "  holding  the  turnips  and  carrot  close  up  to 
my  face.  "  I  vas  asking  for  oranges,"  she  continued, 
"  but  it  is  one  month  ago  since  they  leaved  Christiania." 

"  What ! "  I  exclaimed. 

"  One  mont  ago  since  dey  were  to  see  in  Christiania," 
she  repeated  impatiently.  "It  is  not  mont  since  I  vas 
eating  dem  in  Bergen.  I  tought  in  a  great  place  like 
Christiania  dere  would  be  more  tings  as  in  Bergen  ;  but  it 
is  all  shtories,  you  see." 

How  well  I  came  to  know  the  look  of  that  little  ragged 
old  copy  of  the  grand  Saga,  and  of  Katrina's  face,  as  she 
bent  puzzling  over  it,  every  now  and  then  bursting  out 
with  some  ejaculated  bit  of  translation,  beginning  always 
with,  "Veil,  you  see!  "  I  kept  her  hard  at  work  at  it, 
reading  it  to  me,  while  I  lingered  over  my  lonely  break- 
fasts and  dinners,  or  while  we  sat  under  fragrant  fir-trees 
on  country  hills.  Wherever  we  went,  the  little  old  book 
and  Katrina's  Norwegian  and  English  Dictionary,  older 
still,  went  with  us. 

Her  English  always  incalculably  wrong  and  right,  in 
startling  alternations,  became  a  thousand  times  droller 
when  she  set  herself  to  deliberate  renderings  of  the  lines 
of  the  Saga.  She  went  often,  in  one  bound,  in  a  single 
stanza,  from  the  extreme  of  nonsense  to  the  climax  of 
poetical  beauty  of  phrase  ;  her  pronunciation,  always  as 
unexpected  and  irregular  as  her  construction  of  phrases, 
grew  less  and  less  correct,  as  she  grew  excited  and  ab- 
sorbed in  the  tale.  The  troublesome  th  sound,  which  in 
ordinary  conversation  she  managed  to  enunciate  in  perhaps 
one  time  out  of  ten,  disappeared  entirety  from  her  poetry  ; 
and  in  place  of  it,-  came  the  most  refreshing  t's  and  d's. 
The  worse  her  pronunciation  and  the  more  broken  her 
English,  the  better  I  liked  it,  and  the  more  poetical  was 
the  translation.  Many  men  have  tried  their  hand  at 
translation  of  the  Frithiof 's  Saga,  but  I  have  read  none 
which  gave  me  so  much  pleasure  as  I  had  from  hearing 
Katrina's  ;  neither  do  I  believe  that  any  poet  has  studied 
and  rewritten  it,  however  cultured  he  might  be,  with  more 
enthusiasm  and  delight  than  this  Norwegian  girl  of  the 


294        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND    GERMANY. 

people,  to  whom  many  of  the  mythological  allusions  were 
as  unintelligible  as  if  they  had  been  written  in  Sanskrit. 
She  had  a  convenient  way  of  disposing  of  those  when  she 
came  to  such  as  she  did  not  understand  :  ' '  Dat  's  some  o' 
dem  old  gods,  3rou  see,  — dem  gods  vat  dey  used  to  wor- 
ship." It  was  evident  from  many  of  Katrina's  terms  of 
expression,  and  from  her  peculiar  delight  in  the  most 
poetical  lines  and  thoughts  in  the  Saga,  that  she  herself 
was  of  a  highly  poetical  temperament.  I  was  more  and 
more  impressed  by  this,  and  began  at  last  to  marvel  at 
the  fineness  of  her  appreciations.  But  I  was  not  pre- 
pared for  her  turning  the  tables  suddenly  upon  me,  as  she 
did  one  day,  after  I  had  helped  her  to  a  few  phrases  in  a 
stanza  over  which  she  had  come  to  a  halt  in  difficulties. 

"  As  sure  's  I  'm  aliv,"  she  exclaimed,  "  I  believe  you  're 
a  poet  your  own  self,  too ! "  While  I  was  considering 
what  reply  to  make  to  this  charge,  she  went  on  :  "  Dat's 
what  tey  call  me  in  my  own  country.  I  can  make  songs. 
I  make  a  many :  all  te  birtdays  and  all  te  extra  days  in 
our  family,  all  come  to  me  and  say,  '  Now,  Katrina,  you 
has  to  make  song.'  Dey  tink  I  can  make  song  in  one 
minute  for  all !  [What  a  kinship  is  there,  all  the  world 
over,  in  some  sorts  of  misery  ! J  Ven  I  've  went  to  Amer- 
ica, I  made  a  nice  song,"  she  added.  "  I  vould  like  you 
to  see." 

"  Indeed,  I  would  like  very  much  to  see  it,  Katrina,"  I 
replied.  "  Have  you  it  here  ?  " 

"  I  got  it  in  my  head,  here,"  she*  said,  laughing,  tapping 
her  broad  forehead.  "  I  keeps  it  in  my  head." 

But  it  was  a  long  time  before  I  could  persuade  her  to 
give  it  to  me.  She  persisted  in  saying  that  she  could  not 
translate  it. 

"Surely,  Katrina,"  I  said,  "it  cannot  be  harder  than 
the  Frithiof's  Saga,  of  which  you  have  read  me  so 
much." 

"Dat  is  very  diflerent,"  was  all  I  could  extract  from 
her.  I  think  that  she  felt  a  certain  pride  in  not  hav- 
ing her  own  stanzas  fail  of  true  appreciation  owing  to 
tlieir  being  put  in  broken  English.  At  last,  however,  I 
got  it.  She  had  been  hard  at  work  a  whole  forenoon  in 
her  room  with  her  dictionary  and  pencil.  In  the  after- 
noon she  came  to  me,  holding  several  sheets  of  much- 


THE  KATRINA  SAGA.  295 

scribbled  brown  paper  in'her  hand,  and  said  shyly,  "Now 
1  can  read  it."  I  wrote  it  down  as  she  read  it,  only  in 
one  or  two  instances  helping  her  with  a  word,  and  here 
it  is  :  — 

SONG  ON  MY  DEPARTURE  FROM  BERGEN  FOR 
AMERICA. 

The  time  of  departure  is  near, 

And  I  am  no  more  in  my  home ; 
But,  God,  be  thou  my  protector. 

I  don't  know  how  it  will  go, 
Out  on  the  big  ocean, 

From  my  father  and  mother ; 
I  don't  know  for  sure  where  at  last 

My  dwelling-place  will  be  on  the  earth. 

My  thanks  to  all  my  dear, 

To  my  foster  father  and  mother : 
In  the  distant  land,  as  well  as  the  near, 

Your  word  shall  be  my  guide. 
It  may  happen  that  we  never  meet  on  earth, 

But  my  wish  is  that  God  forever 
Be  with  you  and  bless  you. 

Don't  forget ;  bring  my  compliments  over 

To  that  place  where  my  cradle  stood,  — 
The  dear  Akrehavnske  waves, 

What  I  lately  took  leave  of. 
Don't  mourn,  my  father  and  mother, 

It  is  to  my  benefit ; 
My  best  thanks  for  all  the  goodness 

You  have  bestowed  on  me. 

A  last  farewell  to  you 

All,  my  dear  friends  ; 
May  the  life's  fortune,  honor,  and  glory 

Be  with  you  wherever  you  are ! 
I  know  you  are  all  standing 

In  deep  thoughts 
When  Harald  Haarfager  weighs  anchor, 

And  I  am  away  from  you. 

A  wreath  of  memory 
,  I  will  twine  or  twist  round 

My  dear  native  land, 

And  as  a  lark  happy  sing 
This  my  well-meaned  song. 

Oh,  that  we  all  may  be 
Wreathed  with  glory, 

And  in  the  last  carry  our  wreaths  of  glory 
In  heaven's  hall  ! 


296        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

Watching  my  face  keenly,  she -read  my  approbation  of 
her  simple  little  song,  and  nodding  her  head  with  satisfac- 
tion, said,  — 

u  Oh,  sometime  yon  see  I  ain't  quite  that  foolish  I  look 
to !  I  got  big  book  of  all  my  songs.  Nobody  but  myself 
could  read  dem  papers.  It  is  all  pulled  up,  and  five  six 
words  standing  one  on  top  of  oder." 


II. 

MURRAY'S  Guide-book,  that  paradoxical  union  of  the 
false  and  the  true,  says  of  Christiania,  "There  is  not 
much  of  interest  in  the  town,  and  it  may  be  seen  in  from 
four  to  five  hours."  The  person  who  made  that  statement 
did  not  have  Katrina  with  him,  and  perhaps  ought  there- 
fore to  be  forgiven.  He  had  not  strolled  with  her  through 
the  market  square  of  a  morning,  and  among  the  old  women, 
squatted  low,  with  half  a  dozen  flat,  open  baskets  of  fruit 
before  them :  blueberries,  currants,  raspberries,  plums, 
pears,  and  all  shades,  sizes,  and  flavors  of  cherries,  from 
the  pale  and  tasteless  yellow  up  to  those  wine-red  and 
juicy  as  a  grape ;  the  very  cherry,  it  must  have  been, 
which  made  Lucullus  think  it  worth  while  to  carry  the  tree 
in  triumphal  procession  into  Rome.  Queer  little  wooden 
boxes  set  on  four  low  wheels,  with  a  short  pole,  by  which 
a  strong  man  or  woman  can  draw  them,  are  the  distinctive 
features  of  out-door  trade  in  the  Christiania  market-places. 
A  compacter,  cheaper  device  for  combining  storage,  trans- 
portation, and  exhibition  was  never  hit  on.  The  boxes 
hold  a  great  deal.  They  make  a  good  counter  ;  and  when 
there  are  twenty  or  thirty  of  them  together,  with  poles  set 
up  at  the  four  corners,  a  clothes-line  fastened  from  pole  to 
pole  and  swung  full  of  cheap  stuffs  of  one  sort  and  another, 
ready-made  garments,  hats,  caps,  bonnets,  shoes,  clothes- 
pins, wooden  spoons,  baskets,  and  boxes,  —  the  venders 
sitting  behind  or  among  their  wares,  on  firkins  bottom 
side  up,  —  it  is  a  spectacle  not  to  be  despised  ;  and  when 
a  market-place,  filled  with  such  many-colored  fluttering 


THE  KATRINA  SAGA.  297 

merchandise  as  this,  is  also  flanked  by  old-clothes  stalls 
which  are  like  nothing  except  the  Ghetto,  or  Rag  Fair  in 
London,  it  is  indeed  worth  looking  at.  To  have  at  one's 
side  an  alert  native,  of  frugal  mind  and  unsparing  tongue, 
belonging  to  that  class  of  women  who  can  never  see  a 
low-priced  article  offered  for  sale  without,  for  the  moment, 
contemplating  it  as  a  possible  purchase,  adds  incalculably 
to  the  interest  of  a  saunter  through  such  a  market.  The 
thrifty  Katrina  never  lost  sight  of  the  possibility  of  lighting 
upon  some  bargain  of  value  to  her  home  housekeeping ; 
and  our  rooms  filled  up  from  day  to  day  with  her  acquisi- 
tions. She  was  absolutely  without  false  pride  in  the  matter 
of  carrying  odd  burdens.  One  da}-  she  came  lugging  a  big 
twisted  door-mat  with,  "  You  see  dat?  For  de  door.  In 
Bergen  I  give  exact  double."  The  climax  of  her  purchases 
was  a  fine  washboard,  which  she  brought  in  in  her  arms, 
and  exclaimed,  laughing,  "  What  3-011  tink  the  porter  say 
to  me  ?  He  ask  if  I  am  going  to  take  in  washing  up  here. 
I  only  give  two  crowns  for  dat,"  she  said,  eying  it  with  the 
fondest  exultation,  and  setting  it  in  a  conspicuous  place, 
leaning  against  the  side  of  the  room;  "it  is  better  as  I 
get  for  four  in  Bergen."  Good  little  Katrina  !  her  hands 
were  too  white  and  pretty  to  be  spoiled  b}-  hard  rubbing 
on  a  washboard.  They  were  her  one  vanity,  and  it  was 
pardonable. 

" Did  you  ever  see  hand  like  mine?"  she  said  one  day, 
spreading  her  right  hand  out  on  the  table.  "  Dere  was 
two  English  ladies,  dey  say  it  ought  to  be  made  in  warx, 
and  send  to  see  in  Crystal  Palace.  See  dem?"  she  con- 
tinued, sticking  her  left  forefinger  into  the  four  dimples 
which  marked  the  spots  where  knuckles  are  in  ordinary 
hands  ;  "  dem  is  nice."  It  was  true.  The  hand  was  not 
small,  but  it  was  a  model:  plump,  solid,  dimples  for 
knuckles,  all  the  fingers  straight  and  shapely ;  done  in 
"warx,"  it  would  have  been  a  beautiful  thing,  and  her 
pleasure  in  it  was  just  as  guileless  as  her  delight  in  her 
washboard. 

As  she  delved  deeper  in  her  Frithiof 's  Saga,  she  discov- 
ered that  she  had  been  greatly  wrong  in  her  childish  im- 
pressions of  the  story.  "It  was  not  as  I  tought,"  she 
said  :  "  King  Ring  did  get  Ingeborg  after;  but  he  had  to 
die.  and  leaved  her." 


298        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

When  we  went  out  to  Oscar's  Hall,  which  is  a  pretty 
country-seat  of  the  king's,  on  the  beautiful  peninsula  of 
Ladegaardsoen,  she  was  far  more  interested  in  the  sculp- 
tured cornice  which  told  the  story  of  Frithiof  and  Ingeborg, 
than  in  any  of  the  more  splendid  things,  or  those  more 
suggestive  of  the  life  of  the  king.  The  rooms  are  showily 
decorated :  ceilings  in  white  with  gold  stars,  walls  panelled 
with  velvet ;  gay-colored  frescos,  and  throne-like  chairs 
in  which  "many  kings  and  queens  have  sat,"  the  old 
woman  who  kept  the  keys  said.  Everywhere  were  the 
royal  shields  with  the  crown  and  the  lion  ;  at  the  corners 
of  the  doors,  at  the  crossings  of  ceiling  beams,  above 
brackets,  looking-glasses,  and  on  chair-backs. 

"  I  tink  the  king  get  tired  looking  at  his  crown  all  de 
time,"  remarked  Katrina,  composed!}-.  "I  wonder  vere 
dey  could  put  in  one  more." 

The  bronze  statues  of  some  of  the  old  kings  pleased  her 
better.  She  studied  them  carefully :  Olaf  and  Harald 
Haarfager,  Sverre  Sigurdson  and  Olaf  Tryggvesson  ;  they 
stand  leaning  upon  their  spears,  as  if  on  guard.  The  face 
of  Harald  looks  true  to  the  record  of  him  :  a  fair-haired, 
blue-eyed  man,  who  stopped  at  nothing  when  he  wanted  his 
waj',  and  was  just  as  ready  to  fall  in  love  with  six  succes- 
sive women  after  he  had  labored  hard  twelve  years  for 
Gyda,  and  won  her,  as  before. 

"He  is1  de  nicest,"  said  Katrina,  lingering  before  his 
statue,  and  reaching  up  and  fingering  the  bronze  curiously. 
"  Ain't  it  wonderful  how  dey  can  make  such  tings  !  "  she 
added  with  a  deep-drawn  sigh.  But  when  I  pointed  to 
the  cornice,  and  said,  "  Katrina,  I  think  that  must  be  the 
story  of  the  Frithiof's  Saga,"  she  bounded,  and  threw  her 
head  back,  like  a  deer  snuffing  the  wind.  "  Ja,  ja,"  cried 
the  old  woman,  evidently  pleased  that  I  recognized  it,  and 
then  she  began  to  pour  out  the  tale.  Is  there  a  peasant  in 
all  Norway  that  does  not  know  it,  I  wonder  ?  The  first  me- 
dallion was  of  the  children,  Frithiof  and  Ingeborg,  playing 
together.  "  Dere,"  said  Katrina,  "  dat  is  vat  I  told  you. 
Two  trees  growed  in  one  place,  nicely  in  the  garden  ;  one 
growed  with  de  strength  of  de  oak,  dat  was  Frithiof;  and 
de  rose  in  the  green  walley,  dat  was  Ingeborg  de  beauty." 

Very  closely  she  scanned  the  medallions  one  after  the 
other,  criticising  their  fidelity  to  the  record.  When  she 


THE  KATRINA   SAGA.  299 

came  to  the  one  where  Frithiof  is  supporting  King  Ring 
on  his  knee,  fainting,  or  sleeping,  she  exclaimed,  "  Dere, 
if  he  had  been  dat  bad,  he  could  have  killed  King  Ring 
den,  yen  he  was  sleeping ;  but  see,  he  have  thrown  his 
sword  away  ;  "  and  at  last,  when  the  sculpture  represented 
King  Ring  dying,  and  bequeathing  his  beautiful  queen  and 
her  children  to  Frithiof,  she  exclaimed,  "  Dere,  dem  two 
boys  belongs  to  King  Ring ;  but  now  Frithiof  gets  her. 
Dat  is  good,  after  all  dat  dem  two  had  gone  through  with." 

King  Oscar  makes  very  little  use  of  this  pretty  country- 
house.  He  comes  there  sometimes  once  or  twice  in  the 
course  of  a  summer,  for  a  day,  or  part  of  a  day,  but  never 
to  sleep,  the  old  woman  said.  All  the  rest  of  the  time  it 
is  empty  and  desolate,  with  only  this  one  poor  old  woman 
to  keep  it  tidy  ;  a  good  berth  for  her,  but  a  pity  that 
nobody  should  be  taking  comfort  all  summer  in  the«superb 
outlooks  and  off-looks  from  its  windows  and  porch,  and  in 
the  shady  walks  along  the  banks  of  the  fjord.  One  of  the 
old  Norway  kings,  Hakon,  thought  the  peninsula  beautiful 
enough  for  a  wedding  morning  gift  to  his  queen ;  but  it 
seems  not  to  have  been  held  so  dear  by  her  as  it  ought, 
for  she  gave  it  away  to  the  monks  who  lived  on  the  neigh- 
boring island  of  Hovedoen.  Then,  in  the  time  of  the 
Reformation,  when  monks  had  to  scatter  and  go  begging, 
and  monastic  properties  were  lying  about  loose  every- 
where, the  Norwegian  kings  picked  up  Ladegaardsoen 
again,  and  it  has  been  a  crown  propertj'  ever  since. 

One  of  the  most  charming  of  the  short  drives  in  what 
Katrina  called  "the  nearance"  of  Christiania  is  to  the 
"•  Grefsens  Bad,"  a  water-cure  establishment  only  two 
miles  away,  by  road,  to  the  north,  but  l.ying  so  much 
higher  up  than  the  town  that  it  seems  to  lie  in  another 
world,  —  as  in  fact  it  does ;  for,  climbing  there,  one  rises 
to  another  and  so  different  air  that  he  becomes  another 
man,  being  born  again  through  his  lungs.  It  is  a  good 
pull  up  a  stony  and  ill-kept  road,  to  reach  the  place  ;  but 
it  is  more  than  worth  while,  for  the  sake  of  the  clear  look- 
out to  sea,  over  a  delicious  foreground  of  vivid  green  fields 
and  Avoods. 

'•  This  is  the  place  where  all  the  sick  peoples  in  Norway 
do  come  when  de  doctors  cannot  do  nottings  more  for 
dem."  !- aid  Katrina;  t-deu  dev  comes  here.  Here  crime 


300        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

our  last  king,  King  Oscar,  and  den  he  did  die  on  the  dock 
ven  he  vas  coming  away.  He  had  all  de  climb  dis  hill  vor 
netting.  Ven  it  is  the  time,  one  has  to  go,  no  matter  how 
much  money  dey  will  pay :  dere  is  One "  —  here  she 
stopped  hesitating  for  a  word — "you  know  all  vat  I 
^ican :  dere  is  One  what  has  it  all  his  own  way,  not  de 
'way  we  wish  it  shall  be."  This  she  said  devoutly,  and 
was  silent  for  an  unwonted  length  of  time  afterwards. 

As  we  were  driving  down  the  steepest  part  of  the  hill,  a 
man  came  running  after  us,  calling  so  loudly  to  us  to  stop 
that  we  were  alarmed,  thinking  something  must  be  wrong 
with  our  carriage  or  in  the  road.  Not  at  all.  He  was 
a  roadside  merchant ;  not  precisely  a  pedler,  since  he 
never  went  out  of  his  own  town,  but  a  kind  of  aristocratic 
vender  in  a  small  circuit,  it  seemed ;  we  saw  him  after- 
wards in  other  suburbs,  bearing  with  him  the  same  m}"ste- 
rious  basket,  and  I  very  much  fear,  poor  fellow,  the  same 
still  more  mysterious  articles  in  it.  Not  even  on  Norwe- 
gian country-roads,  I  think,  could  there  be  found  many 
souls  so  dead  to  all  sense  of  beauty  as  to  buy  the  hideous 
and  costly  combinations  which  he  insisted  upon  laying  in 
my  lap :  a  sofa-cushion,  square,  thick,  and  hard,  of  wine- 
colored  velvet,  with  a  sprawling  tree  and  bird  laid  upon  it 
in  an  applique  pattern  cut  out  of  black  and  white  velvet ; 
a  long  and  narrow  strip  of  the  same  velvet,  with  the  same 
black  and  white  velvet  foliage  and  poultry,  was  trimmed 
at  the  ends  with  heavy  fringe,  and  intended  for  a  sideboard 
or  a  bureau  ;  a  large  square  tablecloth  to  match  completed 
the  list  of  his  extraordinary  wares.  It  was  so  odd  a 
wayside  incident  that  it  seemed  to  loom  quite  out  of  its 
normal  proportions  as  a  mere  effort  at  traffic.  He  insisted 
on  spreading  the  articles  in  my  lap.  He  could  not  be 
persuaded  to  take  them  away.  The  driver  turning  round 
on  his  seat,  and  Katrina  leaning  over  from  hers,  both  rapt 
in  admiration  of  the  monstrosities,  were  stolidly  oblivious 
of  my  indifference.  The  things  seemed  to  grow  bigger 
and  bigger  each  moment,  and  more  and  more  hideous,  and 
it  was  at  last  only  by  a  sudden  effort  of  sternness,  as  if 
shaking  off  a  spell,  that  I  succeeded  in  compelling  the 
man  to  lift  them  from  my  knees  and  fold  them  away  in  his 
basket.  As  soon  as  he  had  gone,  I  was  seized  with 
misgivings  that  I  had  been  ungracious  ;  and  these  misgiv- 


TEE  KATRINA  SAGA.  301 

ings  were  much  heightened  by  Katrina's  soliloquizing  as 
follows :  — 

"  He !  I  tink  he  never  take  dem  tings  away.  His  wife 
are  sick  ;  dat  is  de  reason  he  is  on  de  road  instead  of  her. 
He  was  sure  you  would  buy  dem." 

I  hope  the}-  are  sold.     I  wish  I  could  know. 

The  suburbs  of  Christiania  which  lie  along  the  road  to 
the  Grefsens  Bad  are  ugly,  dusty,  and  unpleasing.  "I 
tink  we  go  some  oder  way  dan  way  we  came,"  said  Katrina. 
"Dere  must  be  better  way."  So  saying,  she  stopped  the 
driver  abruptly,  and  after  some  vigorous  conversation  he 
took  another  road. 

"He  ask  more  money  to  go  by  St.  John's  Hill,  but  I 
tell  him  you  not  pay  any  more.  I  can  see  it  is  not  farther  ; 
I  ask  him  if  he  tink  I  got  eyes  in  de  head,"  she  said 
scornfully,  waving  her  fat  fingers  towards  the  citj-  which 
lay  close  at  hand. 

"Ah,  dat  is  great  day,"  she  continued,  "St.  John's 
Day.  Keep  you  dat  in  America?  Here  it  is  fires  all 
round,  from  one  hill  to  one  hill.  Dat  is  from  de  old  time. 
I  tink  it  is  from  Catolics.  Dey  did  do  so  much  for  dem  old 
saints,  you  see.  I  tink  dat  is  it ;  but  I  tink  dey  do  not 
just  know  in  Norway  to-day  what  for  dey  do  it.  It  has 
been  old  custom  from  parents  to  parents." 

Then  I  told  her  about'  Balder  and  his  death,  and  asked 
her  if  she  had  never  seen  the  country  people  put  a  boat  on 
the  top  of  their  bonfire  on  St.  John's  Eve. 

"Yes,  I  did  see  dat,  once,  in  Stavanger,"  she  replied, 
"but  it  was  old  boat;  no  use  any  more.  I  tink  dat  be 
to  save  wood.  It  are  cheapest  wood  dey  have,  old  boat. 
Dat  were  not  to  give  to  an}-  god." 

"  No,  you  are  mistaken,  Katrina,"  I  said.  "  They  have 
done  that  for  hundreds  of  years  in  Norway.  It  is  to 
remind  them  of  Balder's  great  ship,  the  Hringhorn,  and  to 
commemorate  his  death." 

-"  May  be,"  she  said  curtly,  "  but  I  don't  tink.  I  only 
see  dat  once ;  and  all  my  life  I  see  de  fires,  ah*  round 
Bergen,  and  everywhere,  and  dere  was  no  boat  on  dem. 
I  don't  tink." 

We  drove  into  the  city  through  one  of  the  smaller  fruit 
markets,  where,  late  as  it  was,  the  old  women  still  lingered 
with  their  baskets  of  cherries,  pears,  and  currants.  They 


302         NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

were  not  losing  time,  for  they  were  all  knitting,  fast  as 
their  fingers  could  fly  ;  such  a  thing  as  a  Norwegian  wasting 
time  is  not  to  be  seen,  I  verily  believe,  from  the  North 
Cape  to  the  Skager  Rack,  and  one  would  think  that  they 
knit  stockings  enough  for  the  whole  continent  of  Europe  ; 
old  men,  old  women,  little  girls,  and  even  little  boys,  all 
knitting,  knitting,  morning,  noon,  and  night,  by  roadsides, 
on  door-sills,  in  market-places  ;  wherever  they  sit  down,  or 
stand,  to  rest,  they  knit.  As  our  carriage  stopped,  down 
went  the  stockings,  balls  rolling,  yarn  tangling,  on  the 
sidewalk,  and  up  jumped  the  old  women,  all  crowding 
round  me,  smiling,  each  holding  out  a  specimen  of  her 
fruit  for  me  to  taste.  "Eat,  lady,  eat.  It  is  good." 
"Eat  and  you  will  buy."  "No  such  cherries  as  these 
in  Christiania."  "Taste  of  my  plums."  A  chorus  of 
imploring  voices  and  rattling  hail  of  sks.  Hurried  and 
confused  talk  in  the  Norwegian,  tongue  as  spoken  by 
uneducated  people  is  a  bewildering  racket;  it  hardly 
sounds  like  human  voices.  If  the  smiles  did  not  redeem 
it,  it  would  be  something  insupportable ;  but  the  smiles 
do  redeem  it,  transfigure  it,  lift  it  up  to  the  level  of  supe- 
rior harmonies.  Such  graciousness  of  eye  and  of  smiling 
lips  triumphs  over  all  possible  discord  of  sound,  even 
over  the  Norwegian  battery  of  consonants. 

Katrina  fired  back  to  them  all.  I  fear  she  reproved 
them  ;  for  they  subsided  suddenly  into  silence,  and  left 
the  outstretched  withered  palms  holding  the  fruit  to  speak 
for  themselves. 

"I  only  tell  dem  yon  cannot  buy  all  de  market  out. 
You  can  say  vat  you  like,"  she  said. 

Pears  and  cherries,  and  plums  too,  because  the  old 
plum-woman  looked  poorer  than  the  rest,  I  bought ;  and 
as  we  drove  away  the  chorus  followed  us  again  with  good 
wishes.  "  Dey  are  like  crazy  old  vomans,"  remarked 
Katrina;  "I  never  heard  such  noise  of  old  vomans  to 
once  time  before."  A  few  minutes  after  we  reached  the 
house  she  disappeared  suddenly,  and  presently  returned 
with  a  little  cantaloupe  melon  in  her  hands.  Standing 
before  me,  with  a  curious  and  hesitating  look  on  her  face, 
she  said,  "  Is  dis  vat  you  like? " 

"  Oh,  yes,"  I  exclaimed,  grateful  for  the  sight.  "  I  was 
longing  for  one  yesterday.  Where  did  you  get  it? " 


THE  KATRINA   SAGA.  303 

"  I  not  get  it.  I  borrow  it  for  you  to  see.  I  tell 
the  man  I  bring  it  back,"  she  replied,  still  with  the  same 
curious  expressions  of  doubt  flitting  over  her  queer  little 
face. 

"  Why,  whose  melon  is  it?  "  I  exclaimed.  "  What  did 
you  bring  it  for  if  it  were  not  for  sale?" 

"  Oh,  it  is  for  selled,  if  you  like  to  buy,"  she  said,  still 
with  the  hesitant  expression. 

"  Of  course  I  like  to  buy  it,"  I  said  impatiently.  "  How 
much  does  it  cost  ?  " 

"  Dat  is  it,"  replied  Katrina,  sententiously.  "It  is  too 
dear  to  buy,  I  tell  the  man  ;  but  he  said  I  should  bring  it 
to  you,  to  see.  I  tink  you  vill  not  buy  it ; "  still  with  the 
quizzical  look  on  her  face. 

Quite  out  of  patience,  I  cried,  "  But  why  don't  you  tell 
me  the  price  of  it?  I  should  like  it  very  much.  It  can't 
be  so  very  dear." 

"Dat  it  can,"  answered  Katrina,  chuckling,  at  last  let- 
ting out  her  suppressed  laugh.  "He  ask  six  kroner  for 
dat  ting ;  and  I  tink  you  not  buy  it  at  such  price,  so  I 
bring  to  make  you  laugh." 

One  dollar  and  sixty-two  cents  for  a  tiny  cantaloupe ! 
Katrina.  had  her  reward.  "  Oh,  but  I  am  dat  glad  ven 
I  make  you  laugh,"  she  said  roguishly,  picking  up  her 
melon,  as  I  cried  out  with  surprise  and  amusement,  — 

' '  I  should  think  not.  I  never  heard  of  such  a  price  for 
a  melon." 

"So  I  tink,"  said  Katrina.  "I  ask  de  man  who  buy 
dem  melons,  and  he  say  plenty  peoples  ;  but  I  tink  it  is  all 
shtories."  And  she  ran  downstairs  laughing  so  that  I 
heard  her,  all  the  way,  two  flights  down  to  the  door. 

High  up  on  the  dark  wooded  mountain  wall  which  lies 
to  the  north  and  northwest  of  Christiania  is  a  spot  of  light 
color.  In  the  early  morning  it  is  vivid  green  ;  sometimes 
at  sunset  it  catches  a  tint  of  gold  ;  but  neither  at  morn  nor 
at  night  can  it  ever  be  overlooked.  It  is  a  perpetual  lure 
to  the  eye,  and  stimulus  to  the  imagination.  What  eyry 
is  it  that  has  cleared  for  itself  this  loop-hole  in  the  solid 
mountain-forest  ?  Is  it  a  clearing,  or  only  a  bit  of  varied 
wooding  of  a  contrasting  color  to  the  rest?  For  several 
days  I  looked  at  it  before  I  asked ;  and  I  had  grown  so 
impressed  by  its  mystery  and  charm,  that  when  I  found 


804        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

it  was  a  house,  the  summer  home  of  a  rich  Christiania 
family,  and  one  of  the  places  always  shown  to  travellers,  I 
felt  more  than  half-way  minded  not  to  go  near  it,  —  to  keep 
it  still  nothing  more  than  a  far-away,  changing,  luring 
oasis  of  sunny  gold  or  wistful  green  on  the  mountain-side. 
Had  it  been  called  by  any  other  name,  my  instinct  to 
leave  it  unknown  might  have  triumphed ;  but  the  words 
"Frogner  Saeter"  were  almost  as  great  a  lure  to  the 
imagination  as  the  green  oasis  itself.  The  saeter,  high  up 
on  some  mountain-side,  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  Norwegian 
out-door  life,  the  key-note  of  the  Norwegian  summer. 
The  gentle  kine  know  it  as  well  as  their  mistresses  who 
go  thither  with  them.  Three  months  in  the  upper  air, 
in  the  spicy  and  fragrant  woods,  —  no  matter  if  it  be 
solitary  and  if  the  work  be  hard,  the  saeter  life  must 
be  the  best  the  Norwegians  know,  —  must  elevate  and 
develop  them,  and  strengthen  them  for  their  long,  sunless 
winters.  I  had  looked  up  from  the  Vossevangen  Valley, 
from  Ringeriket,  and  from  the  Hardanger  country  to  many 
such  gleaming  points  of  lighter  green,  tossed  up  as  it  were 
on  the  billowj1  forests.  They  were  beyond  the  reach  of 
any  methods  of  ascent  at  my  command  ;  unwillingly  I  had 
accepted  again  and  again  the  wisdom  of  the  farm  ^people, 
who  said  "  the  road  up  to  the  saeter  was  too  hard  for  those 
who  were  not  used  to  it."  Reluctantly  I  had  put  the 
saeter  out  of  my  hopes,  as  a  thing  to  be  known  only  by 
imagination  and  other  people's  descriptions.  Therefore  the 
name  of  the  Frogner  Saeter  was  a  lure  not  to  be  resisted ; 
a  saeter  to  which  one  might  drive  in  a  comfortable  carriage 
over  a  good  road  could  not  be  the  ideal  saeter  of  the  wild 
country  life,  but  still  it  was  called  "  saeter ; "  we  would  go, 
and  we  would  take  a  day  for  the  going  and  coming. 

"  Dat  will  be  bestest,"  said  Katrina.  "  I  tink  you  like 
dat  high  place  better  as  Christiania." 

On  the  way  we  called  at  the  office  of  a  homoeopathic 
physician,  whose  name  had  been  given  to  me  by  a  Bergen 
friend.  He  spoke  ho  English,  and  for  the  first  time  Ka- 
trina's  failed.  I  saw  at  once  that  she  did  not  convey  my 
meanings  to  him,  nor  his  to  me,  with  accuracy.  She  was 
out  of  her  depth.  Her.  mortification  was  droll ;  it  reached 
the  climax  when  it  came  to  the  word  "  dynamic."  Poor 
little  child  !  How  should  she  have  known  that ! 


THE  KATRINA  SAGA.  305 

"I  vill  understand!  I  vill ! "  she  exclaimed;  and  the 
good-natured  doctor  took  pains  to  explain  to  her  at  some 
length ;  at  the  end  of  his  explanation  she  turned  to  me 
triumphantly,  with  a  nod  :  "  Now  I  know  very  well ;  it  is 
another  kind  of  strength  from  the  strength  of  a  machine. 
It  is  not  such  strength  that  3"ou  can  see,  or  you  can  make 
with  your  hands ;  but  it  is  strength  all  the  same,"  —  a 
definition  which  might  be  commended  to  the  careful  atten- 
tion of  all  persons  in  the  habit  or  need  of  using  the  word 
"dynamic." 

It  is  five  miles  from  Christiania  out  and  up  to  the  Frog- 
ner  Saeter,  first  through  pretty  suburban  streets  which  are 
more  roads  than  streets,  with  picturesque  wooden  houses, 
painted  in  wonderful  colors,  —  lilac,  apple-green,  white 
with  orange-colored  settings  to  doors  and  windows,  yellow 
pine  left  its  own  color,  oiled,  and  decorated  with  white  or 
with  maroon  red.  They  look  like  the  gay  toy-houses  sold 
in  boxes  for  children  to  play  with.  There  is  no  one  of 
them,  perhaps,  which  one  would  not  grow  ver}r  weary  of,  if 
he  had  to  see  it  every  day,  but  the  effect  of  the  succession 
of  them  along  the  roadside  is  surprisingly  gay  and  pic- 
turesque. Their  variety  of  shape  and  the  pretty  little 
balconies  of  carved  lattice-work  add  much  to  this  pictu- 
resqueness.  They  are  all  surrounded  by  flower-gardens  of 
a  simple  kind,  —  old-fashioned  flowers  growing  in  clumps 
and  straight  borders,  and  every  window-sill  full  of  plants 
in  bloom  ;  windows  all  opening  outward  like  doors,  so  that 
in  a  warm  day,  when  every  window-sash  is  thrown  open, 
the  houses  have  a  strange  look  of  being  a-flutter.  There 
is  no  expression  of  elegance  or  of  the  habits  or  standards 
of  great  wealth  about  these  suburban  houses  of  Christiania  ; 
but  there  is  a  very  rare  and  charming  expression  of  comfort 
and  good  cheer,  and  a  childlike  simplicity  which  dotes  on 
flowers  and  has  not  outgrown  the  love  of  bright  colors. 
I  do  not  know  anywhere  a  region  where  houses  are  so 
instantly  and  good-naturedly  attractive,  with  a  suggestion 
of  good  fellowship,  and  sensible,  easy-going  good  times 
inside  and  out. 

The  last  three  miles  of  the  road  to  the  saeter  are  steadily 

up,  and  all  the  way  through  dense  woods  of  fir  and  spruce, 

—  that  grand  Norway  spruce,  which  spreads  its  boughs 

out  generously  as  palms,  and  loads  down  each  twig  so 

20 


306        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

full  that  by  their  own  weight  of  shining  green  the  lower 
branches  trail  out  along  the  ground,  and  the  upper  ones 
fold  a  little  and  slant  downwards  from  the  middle,  as  if 
avalanches  of  snow  had  just  slid  off  on  each  side  and  bent 
them.  Here  were  great  beds  of  ferns,  clusters  of  bluebells, 
and  territories  of  Linnsea.  In  June  the  mountain-side  must 
be  fragrant  with  its  flowers. 

Katrina  glowed  with  pleasure.  In  her  colder,  barreuer 
home  she  had  seen  no  such  lavishness  as  this. 

"  Oh,  but  ven  one  tinks,  how  Nature  is  wonderful ! "  she 
cried.  "Here  all  dese  tings  grow  up,  demselves  !  noting 
to  be  done.  Are  dey  not  wort  more  dan  in  gardens?  In 
gardens  always  must  be  put  in  a  corn  before  anyting  come 
up ;  and  all  dese  nice  tings  come  up  alone,  demselves." 

"Oh,  but  see  vat  God  has  done ;  how  much  better  than 
all  vat  people  can  ;  no  matter  vat  dey  make." 

Half-way  up  the  mountain  we  came  to  a  tiny  house,  set 
in  a  clearing  barely  big  enough  to  hold  the  house  and  let  a 
little  sun  in  on  it  from  above. 

"Oh,  I  wish-shed  I  had  dat  little  house  ! "  she  exclaimed. 
"Dat  house  could  stand  in  Bergen.  I  like  to  carry  dat 
home  and  dem  trees  to  it ;  but  my  husband,  he  would  not 
like  it.  He  likes  Bergen  house  bestest." 

As  we  drew  near  the  top,  we  met  carriages  coming  down. 
Evidently  it  was  the  custom  to  drive  to  the  Frogner  Saeter. 

"  I  tink  in  dat  first  carriage  were  Chews,"  said  Katrina, 
scornfully.  "  I  do  hate  dem  Chews.  I  can't  bear  dat 
kind  of  people." 

"  Why  not,  Katrina?"  I  asked.  "  It  is  not  fair  to  hate 
people  because  of  their  religion." 

"  Oh,  dat  I  don't  know  about  deir  religion,"  she  replied 
carelessly.  "  I  don't  tink  dey  got  much  religion  anyhow. 
I  tink  dey  are  kind  of  thieves.  I  saw  it  in  New  York. 
Ven  I  went  into  Chew  shop,  he  say  a  ting  are  tree  dollar ; 
and  I  saj*,  '  No,  dat  are  too  dear.'  Den  he  say,  '  You  can 
have  for  two  dollar  ; '  and  I  say,  '  No,  I  cannot  take  ; '  and 
den  he  say,  'Oh,  have  it  for  one  dollar  and  half;'  and  I 
tink  all  such  tings  are  not  real.  I  hate  dem  Chews.  Dey 
are  all  de  same  in  all  places.  Dey  are  chust  like  dat  if 
de}'  come  in  Norway.  Very  few  Chews  comes  in  Norway. 
Dat  is  one  good  ting." 

In  a  small  open,  part  clearing,  part  natural  rocky  crest 


THE  KATRINA  SAGA.  307 

of  the  hill,  stood  the  saeter :  great  spaces  of  pink  heather 
to  right  and  left  of  it,  a  fir  wood  walling  it  on  two  sides  ; 
to  the  south  and  the  east,  a  clear  off-look  over  the  two 
bays  of  the  Christiania  Fjord,  past  all  their  islands,  out 
to  sea,  and  the  farthest  horizon.  Christiania  lay  like  an 
insignificant  huddle  of  buildings  in  the  nearer  foreground ; 
its  only  beauty  now  being  in  its  rich  surrounding  of  farm- 
lands, which  seemed  to  hold  it  like  a  rough  brown  pebble 
in  an  emerald  setting. 

The  house  itself  fronted  south.  Its  piazza  and  front 
windows  commanded  this  grand  view.  It  was  of  pine  logs, 
smoothed  and  mortised  into  each  other  at  the  corners. 
Behind  it  was  a  hollow  square  of  the  farm  buildings : 
sheds,  barns,  and  the  pretty  white  cottage  of  the  overseer. 
The  overseer's  wife  came  running  to  meet  us,  and  with 
cordial  good-will  took  us  into  the  house,  and  showed  us 
every  room.  She  had  the  pride  of  a  retainer  in  the  place  ; 
and  when  she  found  that  none  of  its  beauty  was  lost  on 
me,  she  warmed  and  grew  communicative.  It  will  not  be 
easy  to  describe  the  charm  of  this  log-house :  only  logs 
inside  as  well  as  out;  but  the  logs  are  Norway  pine, 
yellow  and  hard  and  shining,  taking  a  polish  for  floors 
and  ceiling  as  fine  as  ash  or  maple,  and  making  for  the 
walls  belts  and  stripes  of  gold  color  better  than  paper ; 
all  cross  beams  and  partitions  are  mortised  at  the  joinings, 
instead  of  crossing  and  lapping.  This  alone  gives  to  these 
Norwegian  houses  an  expression  quite  unlike  that  of  ordi- 
nary log-houses.  A  little  carved  work  of  a  simple  pattern, 
at  the  cornices  of  the  rooms  and  on  the  ceiling  beams,  was 
the  only  ornamentation  of  the  house  ;  and  a  great  glass 
door,  of  a  single  pane,  opening  on  the  piazza,  was  the 
onry  luxurious  thing  about  it.  Everything  else  was  simply 
and  beautifully  picturesque.  Old  Norwegian  tapestries 
hung  here  and  there  on  the  walls,  their  vivid  reds  and 
blues  coming  out  superbly  on  the  yellow  pine ;  curious 
antique  corner  cupboards,  painted  in  chaotic  colors  of  fan- 
tastic brightness ;  old  fireplaces  built  out  into  the  room, 
in  the  style  of  the  most  ancient  Norwegian  farm-houses ; 
old  brasses,  sconces,  placques,  and  candlesticks  ;  and  a 
long  dining-table,  with  wooden  benches  of  hollowed  planks 
for  seats,  such  as  are  to  be  seen  to-da}*  in  some  of  the  old 
ruined  baronial  castles  in  England. 


308         NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

In  the  second-story  rooms  were  old-fashioned  bedsteads : 
One  of  carved  pine,  so  high  that  it  needed  a  step-ladder  to 
mount  it ;  the  other  built  like  a  cupboard  against  the  wall, 
and  shut  by  two  sliding  doors,  which  on  being  pushed 
back  disclosed  two  narrow  bunks.  This  is  the  style  of 
bed  in  many  of  the  Norwegian  farm-houses  still.  On  the 
sliding  door  of  the  upper  bunk  was  a  small  photograph  of 
the  prince  imperial ;  and  the  woman  told  us  with  great 
pride  that  he  had  slept  one  night  in  that  bed. 

Upstairs  again,  by  narrow  winding  stairs,  and  there 
we  found  the  whole  floor  left  undivided  save  by  the  big 
chimney-stack  which  came  up  in  the  middle ;  the  gable 
ends  of  the  garret  opened  out  in  two  great  doors  like  barn- 
doors ;  under  the  eaves,  the  whole  length  of  each  side, 
was  a  row  of  bunk  beds,  five  on  each  side,  separated  only 
by  a  board  partition.  This  was  a  great  common  bedroom, 
"  used  for  gentlemen  at  Christmas  time,"  the  woman  said. 
"  There  had  as  many  as  fifteen  or  twenty  gentlemen  slept 
in  that  room." 

At  Christmas,  it  seems,  it  is  the  habit  of  the  family 
owning  this  unique  and  charming  country-house  to  come 
up  into  the  woods  for  a  two  weeks'  festivity.  The  snow 
is  deep.  The  mercury  is  well  down  near  zero  or  below  ;  but 
the  road  up  the  mountain  is  swept  level  smooth :  sledges 
can  go  easier  in  winter  than  carriages  can  in  summer ;  and 
the  vast  outlook  over  the  glittering  white  land  and  shining 
blue  sea  full  of  ice  islands  must  be  grander  than  when  the 
islands  and  the  land  are  green.  Pine  logs  in  huge  fire- 
places can  warm  any  room  ;  and  persons  of  the  sort  that 
would  think  of  spending  Christmas  in  a  fir-wood  on  a 
mountain-top  could  make  a  house  warm  even  better  than 
pine  logs  could  do  it.  Christmas  at  the  Frogner  Sseter 
must  be  a  Christmas  worth  having. 

"The  house  is  as  full  as  ever  it  can  hold,"  said  the 
woman,  "and  fifty  sit  down  to  dinner  sometimes;  they 
think  nothing  of  driving  up  from  Christiania  and  down 
again  at  midnight." 

What  a  place  for  sleigh-bells  to  ring  on  a  frost}*  night ; 
that  rocky  hill-crest  swung  out  as  it  were  in  clear  space  of 
upper  air,  with  the  great  Christiania  Fjord  stretching  away 
beneath,  an  ice-bound,  ice-flaked  sea,  white  and  steel-black 
under  the  winter  moon  !  J  fancied  the  house  blazing  like  n 


THE  KATR1NA  SAGA.  309 

many-sided  beacon  out  of  the  darkness  of  the  mountain 
front  at  midnight,  the  bells  clanging,  the  voices  of  lovers 
and  loved  chiming,  and  laughter  and  mirth  ringing.  I 
think  for  years  to  come  the  picture  will  be  so  vivid  in  my 
mind  that  I  shall  find  myself  on  many  a  Christmas  night 
mentally  listening  to  the  swift  bells  chiming  down  the 
mountain  from  the  Frogner  Saeter. 

The  eastern  end  of  the  piazza  is  closed  in  by  a  great 
window,  one  single  pane  of  glass  like  the  door ;  so  that  in 
this  corner,  sheltered  from  the  wind,  but  losing  nothing  of 
the  view,  one  can  sit  in  even  cold  weather.  Katrina 
cuddled  herself  down  like  a  kitten,  in  the  sun,  on  the 
piazza,  steps,  and  looking  up  at  me,  as  I  sat  in  this  shel- 
tered corner,  said  approvingly,  — 

"  Dis  yon  like.  I  ask  de  voman  if  we  could  stay  here ; 
but  she  got  no  room :  else  she  would  like  to  keep  us.  I 
tink  I  stay  here  all  my  life :  only  for  my  husband,  I  go 
back." 

Then  she  pulled  out  the  Saga  and  read  some  pages  of 
Ingeborg's  Lament,  convulsing  me  in  the  beginning  by 
saying  that  it  was  "Ingeborg's  Whale."  It  was  long 
before  I  grasped  that  she  meant  "  Wail." 

"What  you  say  ven  it  is  like  as  if  you  cry,  but  you 
do  not  cry?"  she  said.  "  Dat  is  it.  It  stands  in  my 
dictionary,  whale  ! "  And  she  reiterated  it  with  some  impa- 
tience at  my  stupidity  in  not  better  understanding  my  own 
language.  When  I  explained  to  her  the  vast  difference 
between  "whale"  and  "wail,"  she  was  convulsed  in  her 
turn.  "  Oh,  dere  are  so  many  words  in  English  which  do 
have  same  sound  and  mean  so  different  ting,"  she  said, 
"I  tink  I  never  learn  to  speak  English  in  dis  world." 

While  we  were  sitting  there,  a  great  speckled  wood- 
pecker flew  out  from  the  depths  of  the  wood,  lighted  on  a 
fir  near  the  house,  and  began  racing  up  and  down  the  tree, 
tapping  the  bark  with  his  strong  bill,  like  the  strokes  of  a 
hammer. 

"  There  is  your  Gertrude  bird,  Katrina,"  said  I.  She 
looked  bewildered.  "  The  woman  that  Christ  punished," 
I  said,  ' '  and  turned  her  into  the  Gertrude  bird ;  do  you 
not  know  the  old  story  ?  "  No,  she  had  never  heard  it. 
She  listened  with  wide-open  eyes  while  I  told  her  the  old 
Norwegian  legend,  which  it  was  strange  that  I  knew  and 


310         NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

she  did  not,  —  how  Christ  and  Peter,  stopping  one  day  at 
the  door  of  a  woman  who  was  kneading  her  bread,  asked 
her  for  a  piece.  She  broke  a  piece  for  them  ;  but  as  she 
was  rolling  it  out,  it  grew  under  her  roller  till  it  filled  her 
table.  She  laid  it  aside,  saying  it  was  too  large,  broke  off 
another  piece,  rolled  it  out  with  the  same  result ;  it  grew 
larger  every  moment.  She  laid  that  aside,  and  took  a 
third  bit,  the  smallest  she  could  possibly  break  off:  the 
same  result ;  that  too  grew  under  her  roller  till  it  covered 
the  table.  Then  her  heart  was  entirely  hardened,  and  she 
laid  this  third  piece  on  one  side,  saying,  "  Go  your  ways, 
I  cannot  spare  you  any  bread  to-day."  Then  Christ  was 
angry,  and  opened  her  eyes  to  see  who  he  was.  She  fell 
on  her  knees,  and  implored  his  forgiveness ;  but  he  said, 
u  No.  You  shall  henceforth  seek  your  bread  from  day  to 
day,  between  the  wood  and  the  bark."  And  he  changed 
her  into  a  bird,  —  the  Gertrude  bird,  or  woodpecker.  The 
legend  runs,  however,  that,  relenting,  the  Lord  said  that 
when  the  plumage  of  the  bird  should  become  entirely 
black,  her  punishment  should  be  at  an  end.  The  Gertrude 
bird  grows  darker  and  darker  every  year,  and  when  it  is 
old,  has  no  white  to  be  seen  in  its  plumage.  When  the 
•white  has  all  disappeared,  then  the  Lord  Christ  takes  it  for 
his  own,  so  the  legend  says  ;  and  no  Norwegian  will  ever 
injure  a  Gertrude  bird,  because  he  believes  it  to  be  under 
God's  protection,  doing  this  penance. 

"Is  dat  true?"  asked  Katrina,  seriously.  "Dat  must 
have  been  when  de  Lord  was  going  about  on  dis  earth ; 
ven  he  was  ghost.  I  never  hear  dat." 

I  tried  to  explain  to  her  the  idea  of  a  fable. 

"  Fable,"  she  said,  "  fable,  —  dat  is  to  teach  people  to 
be  giving  ven  dey  got,  and  not  send  peoples  away  vidout 
notings.  Dat 's  what  I  see,  many  times  1  see.  But  I  do 
not  see  dat  de  peoples  dat  is  all  for  saving  all  dey  got, 
gets  any  richer.  I  tink  if  you  give  all  the  time  to  dem  dat 
is  poorer,  dat  is  de  way  to  be  richer.  Dere  is  always  some 
vat  is  poorer." 

In  the  cosey  little  sitting-room  of  her  white  cottage,  the 
farmer's  wife  gave  us  a  lunch  which  would  not  have  been 
any  shame  to  any  lady's  table,  —  scrambled  eg<rs,  bread, 
rusks,  milk,  and  a  queer  sort  of  election  cake,  with  raisins 
but  no  sugar.  This  Katrina  eypd  with  the  greed  of  a 


THE  KATRINA   SAGA.  311 

child;  watched  to  see  if  I  liked  it,  and  exclaimed,  "We 
onl}"  get  dat  once  a  year,  at  Christmas  time."  Seeing  that 
I  left  a  large  piece  on  my  plate,  she  finally  said,  "  Do  you 
tink  it  would  be  shame  if  I  take  dat  home?  It  is  too  good 
to  be  leaved."  With  great  glee,  on  my  first  word  of  per- 
mission, she  crammed  it  into  her  omnivorous  pocket,  which 
already  held  a  dozen  or  more  green  apples  that  she  had 
persisted  in  picking  up  by  the  roadside  as  we  came. 

As  we  drove  down  the  mountain,  the  glimpses  here  and 
there,  between  the  trees,  of  the  fjord  and  islands  were 
even  more  beautiful  than  the  great  panorama  seen  from 
the  top.  Little  children  ran  out  to  open  gates  for  us,  and 
made  their  pretty  Norwegian  courtesies,  with  smiles  of  grat- 
itude for  a  penn}*.  We  met  scores  of  peasant  women  going 
out  to  their  homes,  bearing  all  sorts  of  burdens  swung 
from  a  yoke  laid  across  their  shoulders.  The  thing  that 
a  Norwegian  cannot  contrive  to  swing  from  one  side  or 
the  other  of  his  shoulder-yoke  must  be  very  big  indeed. 
The  yokes  seem  equally  adapted  to  everything,  from 
a  butter-firkin  to  a  silk  handkerchief  full  of  cabbages. 
Weights  which  would  be  far  too  heavy  to  carry  in  any 
other  way  the  peasants  take  in  this,  and  trot  along  be- 
tween their  swinging  loads  at  as  round  a  pace  as  if  they 
had  nothing  to  carry.  We  drove  a  roundabout  waj-  to 
our  hotel,  to  enable  Katrina  to  see  an  old  teacher  of  hers  ; 
through  street  after  street  of  monotonous  stucco-walled 
houses,  each  with  a  big  open  door,  a  covered  wa}-  leading 
into  a  court  behind,  and  glimpses  of  clothes-lines,  or  other 
walls  and  doorwa}'s,  or  green  yards,  beyond.  Two  thirds 
of  the  houses  in  Christiania  are  on  this  plan  ;  the  families 
live  in  flats,  or  parts  of  flats.  Sometimes  there  are  eight 
or  ten  brass  bell-handles,  one  above  another,  on  the  side 
of  one  of  these  big  doorways,  each  door-bell  marking  a 
family.  The  teacher  lived  in  a  respectable  but  plain 
house  of  this  kind,  —  she  and  her  sister  ;  they  had  taught 
Katrina  in  Bergen  when  she  was  a  child,  and  she  retained 
a  warm  and  grateful  memory  of  them  ;  one  had  been  mar- 
ried, and  her  husband  was  in  America,  where  the}'  were 
both  going  to  join  him  soon.  Everywhere  in  Norway  one 
meets  people  whose  hearts  are  in  America,  —  sous,  hus- 
bands, daughters,  lovers.  Everybody  would  go  if  it  were 
possible  ;  once  fourteen  thousand  went  in  one  year.  I  was 


312        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

told.  These  poor  women  had  been  working  hard  to  sup- 
port themselves  by  teaching  and  by  embroidering.  Katrina 
brought  down,  to  exhibit  to  me,  a  dog's  head,  embroidered 
in  the  finest  possible  silks,  — silks  that  made  a  hair-stroke 
like  a  fine  pen ;  it  was  a  marvellously  ingenious  thing,  but 
no  more  interesting  than  the  "Lord's  Prayer  written  in 
the  circumference  of  two  inches,"  or  any  of  that  class  of 
marvels. 

"  Dey  take  dese  to  America,"  Katrina  said.  "  Did  you 
ever  see  any  ting  like  dem  dere  ?  Dey  jget  thirty  kroner  for 
one  of  dem  dogs.  It  is  chust  like  live  dog." 

After  we  returned,  Katrina  disappeared  again  on  one  of 
her  mysterious  expeditions,  whose  returns  were  usually  of 
great  interest  to  me.  This  time  the}'  brought  to  both  of  us 
disappointment.  Coming  in  with  a  radiant  face,  and  the 
usual  little  newspaper  bundle  in  her  hand,  she  cried  out, 
"Now  I  got  you  de  bestest  ting  j'et,"  and  held  out  her 
treasures,  —  a  pint  of  small  berries,  a  little  larger  than 
whortleberries,  and  as  black  and  shining  as  jet.  "  Dis  is 
de  bestest  berry  in  all  Norway,"  she  exclaimed,  whipping 
one  into  her  own  mouth  ;  "  see  if  you  like." 

I  incautiously  took  three  or  four  at  once.  Not  since  the 
days  of  old-fashioned  Dover's  and  James's  powders  have  I 
ever  tasted  a  more  nauseous  combination  of  flavors  than 
resided  in  those  glittering  black  berries. 

"You  not  like  dem  berries?"  cried  poor  Katrina,  in 
dismay  at  m}-  disgust,  raising  her  voice  and  its  inflections 
at  every  syllable.  "You  not  like  dem  berries?  I  never 
hear  of  nobody  not  liking  dem  berries.  Dey  is  bestest  we 
got !  Any  way,  I  eat  dem  myself,"  she  added  philosophi- 
cally, and  retreated  crestfallen  to  her  room,  where  I  heard 
her  smacking  her  lips  over  them  for  half  an  hour.  I  believe 
she  ate  the  whole  at  a  sitting.  They  must  have  been  a 
variety  of  black  currant,  and  exclusively  intended  by  Nature 
for  medicinal  purposes  ;  but  Katrina  came  out  hearty  and 
well  as  ever  the  next  day,  after  having  swallowed  some 
twelve  or  sixteen  ounces  of  them. 

By  way  of  atoning  for  her  mishap  with  the  berries,  she 
ran  out  early  the  next  morning  and  bought  a  little  packet 
of  odds  and  ends  of  strong-scented  leaves  and  dust  of 
several  kinds,  and,  coming  up  behind  my  chair,  held  it 
close  under  my  nose,  with,  — 


THE  KATRINA  SAGA.  313 

"Ain't  dat nice  smell?  Ain't  dat  better  as  dem berries? 
Oh,  I  tink  I  never  stop  laughing  ven  I  am  at  home  ven  I 
tink  how  you  eat  dem  berries.  Dey  are  de  bestest  berries 
we  got." 

On  my  approving  the  scent,  she  seemed  much  pleased, 
and  laid  the  little  packet  on  my  table,  remarking  that  I 
could  "chust  smell  it  ven  I  liked."  She  added  that  in 
the  winter- time  they  kept  it  in  all  Norwegian  houses,  and 
strewed  it  on  the  stoves  when  they  were  hot,  and  it 
"smelled  beautiful."  They  called  it  "king's  smoke,"  she 
said,  and  nobody  would  be  without  it. 

It  is  easy  to  see  why  the  Norwegians,  from  the  king 
down,  must  need  some  such  device  as  this  to  make  tol- 
erable the  air  in  their  stove-heated  rooms  in  winter.  It 
was  appalling  to  look  at  their  four  and  five  storied  stoves, 
and  think  how  scorched  the  air  must  be  by  such  a  mass  of 
heated  ii'on.  The  average  Norwegian  stove  is  as  high  as 
the  door  of  the  room,  or  even  higher.  It  is  built  up  of 
sections  of  square-cornered  hollow  iron  pipe,  somewhat  as 
we  build  card-houses ;  back  and  forth,  forward  and  back, 
up  and  across,  through  these  hollow  blocks  of  cast-iron, 
goes  the  heated  air.  It  takes  hours  to  get  the  tower 
heated  from  bottom  to  top  ;  but  once  it  is  heated  there  is  a 
radiating  mass  of  burnt  iron,  with  which  it  must  be  terrible 
to  be  shut  up.  The  open  spaces  between  the  cross  sections 
must  be  very  convenient  for  many  purposes,  —  to  keep  all 
sorts  of  things  hot ;  and  a  man  given  to  the  habit  of  tip- 
ping back  in  his  chair,  and  liking  to  sit  with  his  feet  higher 
than  his  head,  could  keep  his  favorite  attitude  and  warm 
his  feet  at  the  same  time,  — a  thing  that  could  n't  be  done 
with  an}-  other  sort  of  stove. 

One  of  my  last  da}-s  in  Christiania  was  spent  on  the 
island  of  Hovedoen,  a  short  half-hour's  row  from  the  town. 
Here  are  the  ruins  of  an  old  monastery,  dating  back  to  the 
first  half  of  the  twelfth  century,  and  of  priceless  interest  to 
antiquarians,  who  tell,  inch  by  inch,  among  the  old  grass- 
grown  stones,  just  where  the  abbot  sat,  and  the  monks 
prayed,  and  through  which  arch  they  walked  at  vespers. 
Bits  of  the  old  carved  cornices  are  standing  everywhere, 
leaning  up  against  the  moss-grown  walls,  which  look  much 
less  old  for  being  hoary  with  moss.  One  thing  they  had 
in  the  monastery  of  Hovedoen,  —  a  well  of  ice-cold,  spark- 


314        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY. 

ling  water,  which  might  have  consoled  them  for  much  lack 
of  wine ;  and  if  the  limes  and  poplars  and  birches  were  * 
half  as  beautiful  in  1147  as  they  are  now,  the  monks  were  ; 
to  be  envied,  when  a  whole  nunneryful  of  nuns  took  refuge 
on  their  island  in  the  time  of  the  first  onslaught  on  con- 
vents. What  strolls  under  those  trees !  There  are  sev- 
eral species  of  flowers  growing  there  now  which  grow 
nowhere  else  in  all  the  region  about,  and  tradition  says 
that  these  nuns  planted  them.  The  paths  are  edged  with 
heather  and  thyme  and  bluebells,  and  that  daintiest  of 
little  vetches,  the  golden  yellow,  whose  blossoms  were 
well  named  by  the  devout  sisters  "  Mary's  golden  shoes." 
As  we  rowed  home  at  sunset  over  the  amber  and  silver 
water,  Katrina  sang  Norwegian  songs  ;  her  voice,  though 
untrained  and  shrill,  had  sweet  notes  in  it,  and  she  sang 
with  the  same  childlike  heartiness  and  innocent  exultation 
that  she  showed  in  everything  else.  "  Old  Norway  "  was 
the  refrain  of  the  song  she  liked  most  and  sang  best ;  and 
more  than  one  manly  Norwegian  voice  joined  in  with  hers 
with  good-will  and  fervor. 

At  the  botanical  gardens  a  Victoria  regia  was  on  the 
point  of  blooming.  Day  after  da}-  I  had  driven  out  there 
to  see  it ;  each  day  confident,  each  day  disappointed.  The 
professor,  a  quaint  and  learned  old  man,  simple  in  speech 
and  behavior,  as  all  great  scientific  men  are,  glided  about 
in  a  linen  coat,  his  shears  hanging  in  a  big  sheath  on  one 
side  his  belt,  his  pruning-knife  on  the  other,  and  a  big  note- 
book in  his  breast-pocket.  His  life  seemed  to  me  one  of 
the  few  ideal  ones  I  had  ever  seen.  His  house  stands  on 
a  high  terrace  in  the  garden,  looking  southward,  over  the 
city  to  the  fjord.  It  is  a  long,  low  cottage,  with  dormer 
windows  sunk  deep  in  the  red-tiled  roof,  shaded  by  two 
great  horsechestnut  trees,  which  are  so  old  that  clumps  of 
grass  have  grown  in  their  gnarled  knots.  Here  he  plants 
and  watches  and  studies ;  triumphs  over  the  utmost  rigors 
of  the  Norway  climate,  and  points  with  pride  to  a  dozen 
varieties  of  Indian  corn  thriving  in  his  grounds.  Tropical 
plants  of  all  climes  he  has  cajoled  or  coerced  into  living 
out-of-doors  all  winter  in  Norway.  One  large  house  full 
of  begonias  was  his  special  pride ;  tier  after  tier  of  the 
splendid  velvet  leaves,  all  shades  of  color  in  the  blossoms  : 
one  could  not  have  dreamed  that  the  world  held  so  many 


THE  KATRINA  SAGA.  315 

varieties  of  begonia.  He  was  anno}-ed  by  his  Victoria 
regia's  tardiness.  There  it  lay,  lolling  in  its  huge  lake,  — 
in  a  sultry  heated  air  which  it  was  almost  dangerous  for 
human  lungs  to  breathe.  Its  seven  huge  leaves  spread 
out  in  round  disks  on  which  a  child  could  stand  safe.  In 
the  middle,  just  out  of  the  water,  rose  the  mysterious  red 
bud.  It  was  a  plant  he  had  himself  raised  in  one  }rear 
from  seed  ;  and  he  felt  towards  it  as  to  a  child. 

"  I  cannot  promise.  I  did  think  it  should  have  opened 
this  morning.  It  has  lifted  itself  one  inch  since  last 
night,"  he  said.  "It  is  not  my  fault,"  he  added  apolo- 
getically, like  a  parent  who  cannot  make  a  child  obey. 
Then  he  showed  me,  by  his  clasped  hands,  how  it  opened  ; 
in  a  series  of  spasmodic  unclosings,  as  if  by  throes,  at  in- 
tervals of  five  or  six  minutes ;  each  unclosing  revealing 
more  and  more  of  the  petals,  till  at  last,  at  the  end  of  a 
half-hour,  the  whole  snowy  blossom  is  unfolded :  one  day 
open,  then  towards  night,  by  a  similar  series  of  throe-like 
movements,  it  closes,  and  the  next  morning,  between  nine 
and  eleven,  opens  again  in  the  same  way,  but  no  longer 
white.  In  the  night  it  has  changed  its  color.  One  look, 
one  taste,  one  daj",  of  life  has  flushed  it  rose-red.  As  the 
old  professor  told  me  this  tale,  not  new,  but  always  won- 
derful and  solemn,  his  face  kindled  with  delight  and  awe. 
No  astronomer  reckoning  the  times  and  colors  of  a  recur- 
ring planet  could  have  had  a  vivider  sense  of  the  beauty 
and  grandeur  of  its  law.  The  last  thing  I  did  in  Chris- 
tiania  was  to  drive  for  the  third  time  to  see  if  this  flower 
had  unfolded.  It  had  apparently  made  no  movement  for 
twenty-four  hours. 

"I^tought  you  not  see  dat  flower,"  said  Katrina,  who 
had  looked  with  some  impatience  on  the  repeated  bootless 
journeys.  "  I  tink  it  is  hoombug.  I  tink  it  is  all  shtories." 

To  me  there  was  a  half-omen  in  the  flower's  delay. 
Norway  also  had  shown  me  only  half  its  beauty ;  I  was 
going  away  wistful  and  unsatisfied.  "  You  must  have  an- 
other Victoria  next  summer,"  I  said  to  the  quaint  old  pro- 
fessor, when  I  bade  him  good-bv ;  and  as  Katrina  ran 
swiftly  off  the  deck  of  the  steamer,  that  I  might  not  see 
any  tears  in  her  ej-es,  bidding'  me  farewell,  I  said  also  to 
her,  "•  Next  summer,  Katrina.  Study  the  Frithiof's  Saga, 
and  read  me  the  rest  of  it  next  summer." 


316        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY. 

I  hope  she  will  not  study  it  so  well  as  to  improve  too 
much  in  her  renderings.  Could  any  good  English  be  so 
good  as  this? 

FRITHIOF  AND  INGEBORG. 

Two  trees  growed  bold  and  silent:  never  before  the  north 
never  seen  such  beauties;  they  growed  nicely  in  the  garden. 

The  one  growed  up  with  the  strength  of  the  oak ;  and  the 
stem  was  as  the  handle  of  the  spear,  but  the  crown  shaked  in 
the  wind  like  the  top  on  the  helmet. 

But  the  other  one  growed  like  a  rose,  —  like  a  rose  when  the 
winter  just  is  going  away ;  but  the  spring  what  stands  in  its 
buds  still  in  dreams  childly  is  smiling. 

The  storm  shall  go  round  the  world.  In  fight  with  the  storm 
the  oak  will  stand:  the  sun  in  the  spring  will  glow  on  the 
heaven.  Then  the  rose  opens  its  ripe  lips. 

So  they  growed  in  joy  and  play ;  and  Frithiof  was  the  young 
oak,  but  the  rose  in  the  green  walley  was  named  Ingeborg  the 
Beauty. 

If  you  seen  dem  two  in  the  daylight,  you  would  think  of 
Freya's  dwelling,  where  many  a  little  pair  is  swinging  with 
yellow  hair,  and  vings  like  roses. 

But  if  you  saw  dem  in  the  moonlight,  dancing  easy  around, 
you  would  tink  to  see  an  erl-king  pair  dancing  among  the 
wreaths  of  the  walley.  How  he  was  glad  — 

"  Dein  's  the  nicest  vairses,  I  tink." 

—  how  he  was  glad,  how  it  was  dear  to  him,  when  he  got  to 
write  the  first  letter  of  her  name,  and  afterwards  to  learn  his 
Ingeborg,  that  was  to  Frithiof  more  than  the  king's  honor. 

How  nicely  when  with  the  little  sail,  ven  they  vent  over  the 
surface  of  the  water,  how  happy  with  her  little  white  hands 
she  is  clapping  ven  he  turns  the  rudder. 

How  far  up  it  was  hanging  in  the  top  of  the  tree,  to  the 
bird's-nest,  he  found  up;  sure  was  not  either  the  eagle's  nest, 
when  she  stand  pointing  down  below. 

You  could  n't  find  a  river,  no  matter  how  hard  it  was,  with- 
out he  could  carry  her  over.  It  is  so  beautiful  when  the  waves 
are  roaring  to  be  keeped  fast  in  little  white  arms. 

The  first  flower  brought  up  in  the  spring,  the  first  strawberry 
that  gets  red,  the  first  stem  that  golden  bended  down,  he  happy 
brought  his  Ingeborg. 

But  the  days  of  childhood  goes  quickly  away.  There  stands 
a  youth ;  and  in  a  while  the  "hope,  the  brave,  and  the  fire  is 
standing  in  his  face.  There  stands  a  maiden,  with  the  bosom 
swelling. 


THE  KATRINA   SAGA.  317 

Very  often  Frithiof  went  out  a-hunting.  Such  a  hunting 
would' frighten  many;  without  spear  and  sword  the  brave  would 
fetch  the  bear:  they  were  fighting  breast  to  breast;  and  after 
the  glory,  in  an  awful  state,  the  hunter  went  home  with  what 
he  got. 

What  girl  wouldn't  like  to  take  that? 

"  Ven  he  had  been  fighting  that  way,  you  see,  without 
any  sword  or  anyting." 

Then  dear  to  the  women  is  the  fierce  of  a  man.  The  strength 
is  wort  the  beauty,  and  they  will  fit  well  for  another,  as  well  as 
the  helm  fits  the  brain  of  an  hero. 

But  if  he  in  the  winter  evening,  with  his  soul  fierce,  by  the 
fire's  beam  was  reading  of  bright  Walhalla,  a  song,  a  song  of 
the  gods  — 

"  Veil,  dat's  the  mans  ;  vat's  the  vomens?  " 

"Goddesses?" 

"Veil,  dat's  it." 

—  a  song  of  the  gods  and  goddesses'  joy,  he  was  tinking,  Yellow 
is  the  hair  of  Freya.     My  Ingeborg  — 

"  Vat's  a  big  field  called  when  it  is  all  over  ripe?" 

"Yellow?" 

"  No,"  —  a  shake  of  the  head. 

—  is  like  the  fields  when  easy  waves  the  summer  wind  a  golden 
net  round  all  the  flower  bundles. 

Iduna's  bosom  is  rich,  and  beautiful  it  waves  under  the 
green  satin.  I  know  a  twin  satin  wave  in  where  light  Alfs  hid 
thernself. 

And  the  eyes  of  Frigga  are  blue  as  the  heavenly  whole;  still 
often  I  looked  at  two  eyes  under  the  vault  of  heaven :  against 
dem  are  a  spring  day  dark  to  look  at. 

How  can  it  be  they  praise  Gerda's  white  cheeks,  and  the  new- 
come  snow  in  the  north  light  beam? 

I  looked  at  cheeks,  the  snow  mountain's  beam  ain't  so  beau- 
tiful in  the  red  of  the  morning. 

I  know  a  heart  as  soft  as  N  anna's,  if  not  so  much  spoken  of. 

Well  praised  of  the  skalds  you,  Xanna's  happy  Balder! 

Oh,  that  I  as  you  could  die  missed  of  the  soft  and  honest 
maiden,  your  Nanna  like.  I  should  glad  go  down  to  Hell's  the 
dark  kingdom. 

But  the  king's  daughter  sat  and  sung  a  hero  song,  and 
weaved  glad  into  the  stuff  all  things  the  hero  have  done,  the 
blue  sea,  the  green  walley,  and  rock-rifts. 


318        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY. 
There  growed  out  in  snow-white  vool  the  shining  shields  of  — 
"  Ain't  there  a  word  you  say  spinned?  " 

—  spinned  gold ;  red  as  the  lightning  flew  the  lances  of  the  war, 
and  stiff  of  silver  was  every  armor. 

But  as  she  quickly  is  weaving  and  nicely,  she  gets  the  heroes 
Frithiof s  shape,  and  as  she  comes  farther  into  the  weave,  she 
gets  red,  but  still  she  sees  them  with  joy. 

But  Frithiof  did  cut  in  walley  and  field  many  an  I  and  F  in 
the  bark  of  — 

"  He  cut  all  round.  Wherever  he  come,  he  cut  them 
two." 

—  the  trees.     These  Runes  is  healed  with  happy  and  joy,  just 
like  the  young  hearts  together. 

When  the  daylight  stands  in  its  emerald  — 

Here  we  had  a  long  halt,  Katrina  insisting  on  saying 
"  smaragd,"  and  declaring  that  that  was  an  English  word  ; 
she  had  seen  it  often,  and  "  it  could  not  be  pronounced  in 
any  other  way;"  she  had  seen  it  in  "Lady  Montaig  in 
Turkey,"  —  "she  had  loads  of  smaragds  and  all  such 
things."  Her  contrition,  when  she  discovered  her  mis- 
take, was  inimitable. 

She  had  read  this  account  of  "Lady  Montagu  in  Tur- 
key," in  her  "Hundred  Lessons,"  at  school  so  many 
times  she  knew  it  by  heart,  which  she  proceeded  to  prove 
by  long  quotations. 

—  and  the  king  of  the  light  with  the  golden  hair,  and  the  mens, 
is  busy  wandering,  then  they  did  only  think  one  on  each  other. 

When  the  night  is  standing  in  its  emerald,  and  the  mother 
of  the  sleep  with  elai'k  hair  and  all  are  silent,  and  the  stars  are 
wandering,  den  they  only  is  dreaming  of  each  other. 

Thou  Earth  dat  fix  thee  [or  gets  new]  every  spring,  and  is 
braiding  the  flowers  into  your  hair,  the  beautifullest  of  them, 
give  me  friendly,  for  a  wreath  to  reward  Frithiof. 

Thou  Ocean,  dat  in  thy  dark  room  has  pearls  in  thousands, 
give  me  the  best,  the  beautifullest,  and  the  beautifullest  neck  I 
will  bind  them  to. 

Thou  button  on  Odin's  king-chair,  Thou  World's  Eye  Golden 
Sun,  if  you  were  mine,  your  shining  round  I  would  give  Fri- 
thiof as  shield. 

Thou  lantern  in  the  All-Father's  Home,  the  moon  with  the 
pale  torch,  if  you  were  mine,  I  would  give  it  as  an  emerald  for 
my  beautiful  hand-maiden. 


THE  KATR1NA  SAGA.  319 

Then  Hilding  said,  "  Foster  son, 
Your  love  would  n't  be  any  good  to  you. 
Different  lots  Norna  gives  out. 
That  maiden  is  daughter  to  King  Bele. 
To  Odin  hisself  in  the  Star-place 

Mounts  her  family. 
You,  de  son  of  Thorstein  peasant, 
Must  give  way,  because  like  thrives  best  with  like." 

"  He  have  to  leave  because  he  vas  poor,  you  see." 

But  Frithiof  smiled:  "  Very  easy 

My  arm  will  win  me  king's  race. 

The  king  of  the  wood  fall, 

The  king  of  the  forest  fall  in  spite  of  claw  and  howl; 

His  race  I  inherit  with  the  Skin." 

The  free-born  man  would  n't  move, 
Because  the  world  belongs  to  the  free. 
Easy,  courage  can  reconcile  fortune, 
And  de  Hope  carries  a  king's  crown. 

Most  noble  is  all  Strength .     Because  Thor  — 
"  He  was  fader  of  all  dem  oder  gods,  you  see." 

The  ancestor  lives  in  Thrudvang, 

He  weighs  not  de  burden,  but  de  wort; 

"  Look  now,  all  dese  be  strange  words." 
A  mighty  wooer  is  also  the  Sword. 

I  will  fight  for  my  young  bride, 
If  it  so  were,  vid  de  God  of  de  Tunder; 
Grow  safe,  grow  happy,  my  white  lily, 
Our  covenant  are  fast 'as  the  Norna's'will. 

This  is  her  translation  of  the  last  stanzas  of  the  account 
of  Ingeborg's  marriage  to  Frithiof:  — 

In  come  Ingeborg  in  hermine  sack,  and  bright  jewels,  fol- 
lowed of  a  crowd  of  maids  like  de  stars  wid  de  moon.  Wid  de 
tears  in  de  beautiful  eyes  she  fall  to  her  brother's  heart;  but  he 
lead  the  dear  sister  up  to  Frithiof 's  noble  breast;  and  over  the 
God's  altar  she  reach-ched  her  hand  to  de  childhood's  friend,  to 
her  heart's  beloved. 

A  few  days  before  I  left  Christiania,  Katrina  had  come 
shyly  up  to  my  table,  one  evening,  and  tossed  down  on  it 
a  paper,  saying,  — 


320        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY. 

"  Dere  is  anoder.     Dis  one  is  for  you." 

On  looking  at  it,  I  found  it  contained  four  stanzas  of 
Norwegian  verse,  in  which  my  name  occurred  often.  No 
persuasions  I  could  bring  to  bear  on  her  would  induce  her 
to  translate  it.  She  only  laughed,  said  she  could  not,  and 
that  some  of  my  Norwegian  friends  must  read  it  to  me. 
She  read  it  aloud  in  the  Norwegian,  and  to  my  ignorant 
ear  the  lines  had  a  rhythmical  and  musical  sound.  She 
herself  was  pleased  with  it.  "  It  is  nice  song,  dat  song," 
she  said ;  but  turn  it  into  English  for  me  she  would  not. 
Each  day,  however,  she  asked  if  I  had  had  it  translated, 
and  finding  on  the  last  day  that  I  had  not,  she  darted  into 
her  room,  shut  the  door,  and  in  the  course  of  two  hours 
came  out,  saying,  "I  got  it  part  done;  but  dey  tell  you 
better,  as  I  tell  you." 

The  truth  was,  the  tribute  was  so  flattering,  she  pre- 
ferred it  should  come  to  me  second  hand.  She  shrank 
from  saying  directly,  in  open  speech,  all  that  it  had 
pleased  her  affectionate  heart  to  sa}T  in  the  verses.  Three 
of  the  stanzas  I  give  exactly  as  she  wrote  them.  The 
rest  is  a  secret  between  Katrina  and  me. 

THANKS. 

The  duty  command  me  to  honor 

You,  who  with  me 
Were  that  kind  I  set  her  beside 
My  parents.    Like  a  sunbeamed  picture 
For  my  look,  you  painted  stands. 
My  wishes  here  translated 
With  you  to  Colorado  go. 

Happy  days  !  oh,  happy  memories 

Be  with  me  on  the  life's  way. 
Let  me  still  after  a  while  find  or  meet 
You  energisk.     I  would  n't  forget. 

God,  be  thou  a  true  guide 
For  her  over  the  big  ocean  ; 

Keep  away  from  her  all  torments 

That  she  happy  may  reach  her  home. 

Take  my  thanks  and  my  farewell 

As  remembrance  along  with  you  home, 
Though  a  stranger  I  am  placed 

And  as  servant  for  you, 
The  heaven's  best  reward  I  pray  down 
For  all  you  did  to  me. 

Good  luck  and  honor 

Be  with  you  till  you  die. 


THE  KATRINA  SAGA.  321 

The  last  verse  seems  to  me  to  sound  far  better  in  Nor- 
wegian than  in  English,  and  is  it  not  more  fitting  to  end 
the  Katrina  Saga  in  a  few  of  her  words  in  her  own 
tongue  ? 

"  Modtag  Takken  og  Farvellet 
Som  Erindring  med  dem  hjem, 
Sjont  som  Fremmed  jeg  er  stillet 
Og  som  Tjener  kun  for  dem. 
Himlen's  rige  Lon  nedbeder 
Jeg  for  Lidet  og  for  Stort, 
Mrs.  Jackson,  Held  og  Haeder 
Folge  dem  til  Doden's  Port." 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A  TRAVELLER. 
I. 

DEAR  PEOPLE,  —  We  had  a  fine  send-off  from  Chris- 
tiania.  The  landlord  of  the  Scandinavie  sent  up  to  know 
if  we  would  do  him  the  honor  to  drive  down  to  the  steamer 
in  his  private  carriage.  Katrina  delivered  the  message 
with  exultant  eyes.  "You  see,"  she  said,  "he  likes  to 
show  dat  he  do  not  every  day  get  such  in  de  house."  We 
sent  word  back  that  we  should  consider  ourselves  most 
honored ;  and  so  when  we  went  downstairs,  there  stood 
a  fine  landau  open,  with  bouquets  lying  on  the  seats,  and 
a  driver  in  livery  ;  and  the  landlord  himself  in  the  door- 
way, and  the  landlord's  wife,  who  had  sent  us  the  bouquets, 
Katrina  said,  peering  from  behind  the  curtains.  When 
she  saw  Katrina  pointing  her  out,  she  threw  the  curtains 
back  and  appeared  full  in  view,  smiling  and  waving  her 
hand  ;  we  lifted  up  our  bouquets,  and  waved  them  to  her, 
and  smiled  our  thanks.  Katrina  sprang  up,  with  my  cloak 
on  her  arm,  to  the  coachman's  seat.  "  I  tink  I  go  down 
too,"  she  exclaimed,  "I  see  you  all  safe;"  and  so  we 
drove  off,  with  as  much  smiling  and  bowing  and  "fare- 
welling"  as  if  we  had  been  cousins  and  aunts  of  every- 
body in  the  Scandinavie.  How  we  did  hate  to  leave  our 
great  corner  rooms,  with  five  windows  in  them,  the  fifth 
window  being  across  the  corner,  which  is  not  a  right-angled 
corner,  but  like  a  huge  bay-window !  This  utilization  of 
the  corner  is  a  ver}-  noticeable  feature  in  the  streets  of 
Christiania.  In  the  greater  part  of  the  best  houses  the 
corner  is  cut  off  in  this  way  ;  the  door  into  the  room  being 
across  the  opposite  corner  (also  cut  off),  thus  making 
a  six-sided  room.  The  improvement  in  the  street-fronts 
of  handsome  blocks  of  buildings  made  by  this  shape 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  323 

instead  of  the  usual  rectangular  corner  is  greater  than 
would  be  supposed,  and  the  rooms  made  in  this  fashion 
are  delightfully  bright,  airy,  and  out  of  the  common. 

I  did  not  quite  fancy  sailing  in  a  steamer  named  ' '  Bal- 
der," —  one  gets  superstitious  in  Norway,  —  but  I  think  we 
had  flowers  enough  on  board  to  have  saved  us  if  Loki  her- 
self had  wished  us  ill.  Nothing  in  all  Norway  is  more 
striking  than  the  Norwegian's  love  of  flowers.  It  is  no 
exaggeration  to  say  that  one  does  not  see  a  house  without 
flowers -in  the  window.  In  the  better  houses  every  win- 
dow in  the  front,  even  up  to  the  little  four-paned  window 
in  the  gable,  has  its  row  of  flower-pots ;  and  even  in  the 
very  poorest  hovels  there  will  be  at  least  one  window 
flower-filled.  This  general  love  and  culture  of  flowers 
makes  it  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  for  the  Nor- 
wegian, when  he  travels,  to  be  carrying  along  something 
in  the  shape  of  a  plant.  He  is  either  taking  it  home  or 
carrying  it  as  a  gift  to  some  one  he  is  going  to  visit.  I 
have  not  yet  been  on  a  steamboat  where  I  did  not  see  at 
least  a  dozen  potted  plants,  of  one  sort  or  another,  being 
carefully  carried  along,  as  hand  luggage,  by  men  or  women  ; 
and  as  for  bouquets,  they  are  almost  as  common  as  hats  and 
bonnets.  Of  the  potted  plants,  five  out  of  seven  will  be 
green  m}Ttles,  and  usually  the  narrow  leaf.  There  is  a 
reason  for  this,  —  the  Norwegian  bride,  of  the  better  class, 
wears  always  a  chaplet  of  green  myrtle,  and  has  her  white 
veil  trimmed  with  little  knots  of  it  from  top  to  bottom. 
The  chaplet  is  made  in  front  somewhat  after  the  shape  of 
the  high  gilded  crowns  worn  by  the  peasant  brides  ;  but 
at  the  back  it  is  simply  a  narrow  wreath  confining  the  veil. 
After  I  knew  this,  1  looked  with  more  interest  at  the  pots 
of  myrtle  I  met  everywhere,  journeying  about  from  place 
to  place  ;  and  I  observed,  after  this,  what  I  had  not  before 
noticed,  that  ever}-  house  had  at  least  one  pot  of  myrtle 
in  its  windows. 

There  were  a  dozen  different  varieties  of  carnations  in 
our  bouquets.  The  first  thing  I  saw  as  we  moved  off  from 
the  wharf  was  a  shabbily  dressed  little  girl  with  a  big 
bouquet  entirely  of  carnations,  in  which  there  must  have 
been  man}'  more.  In  a  few  minutes  a  woman,  still  shab- 
bier than  the  little  girl,  came  down  into  the  cabin  with  a 
great  wooden  box  of  the  sort  that  Norwegian  women  carry 


324        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

everything  in,  from  potatoes  up  to  their  church  fineries: 
it  is  an  oval  box  with  a  little  peak  at  each  end  like  a 
squirrel  cage  ;  the  top,  which  has  a  hole  in  the  middle,  fits 
down  around  these  peaks  so  tight  that  the  box  is  safety 
lifted  bj  this  handle ;  and,  as  I  say,  everything  that  a 
Norwegian  woman  wants  to  cany,  she  puts  into  her 
tine  (pronounced,  "  teener").  Some  of  them  are  painted 
in  gay  colors ;  others  are  left  plain.  Setting  down  the 
box,  she  opened  it,  and  proceeded  to  sprinkle  with  water 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  wreaths  I  have  ever  seen,  —  white 
lilies,  roses,  and  green  myrtle.  I  think  it  came  from  a 
wedding ;  but  as  she  knew  no  English,  and  I  no  Norwe- 
gian, I  could  not  find  out.  Two  nights  and  a  day  she 
was  going  to  carry  it,  however,  and  she  sprinkled  it  several 
times  a  day.  An  hour  later,  when  I  went  down  into  the 
cabin,  there  was  a  row  of  bouquets  filling  the  table  under 
the  looking-glass  ;  five  pots  of  flowers  standing  on  the  floor, 
and  in  several  staterooms  whose  doors  were  standing  open 
I  saw  still  more  of  both  bouquets  and  plants.  This  is  only 
a  common  illustration  of  the  universal  custom.  It  is  a 
beautiful  one,  and  in  thorough  keeping  with  the  affec- 
tionate simplicity  of  the  Norwegian  character. 

Christiania  looked  beautiful  as  we  sailed  away.  It  lies 
in  the  hollow,  or  rather  on  the  shore  rim  of  the  fine  amphi- 
theatre of  hills  which  makes  the  head  of  the  Christiania 
Fjord.  Fjord  is  a  much  more  picturesque  word  than  bay ; 
and  I  suppose  when  a  bay  travels  up  into  the  heart  of  a 
country  scores  of  miles,  slips  under  several  narrow  strips 
of  land  one  after  the  other,  making  lakes  between  them, 
it  is  entitled  to  be  called  something  more  than  plain  bay  ; 
but  I  wish  it  had  been  a  word  easier  to  pronounce.  I 
never  could  sa}"  "fjord,"  when  I  read  the  word  in 
America ;  and  all  that  I  have  gained  on  the  pronouncing 
of  it  by  coming  to  Norway  is  to  become  still  more  dis- 
tinctly aware  that  I  always  pronounce  it  wrong.  I  do  not 
think  Cadmus  ever  intended  that  j  should  be  y,  or  that 
one  should  be  called  on  to  pronounce /before  it. 

The  Christiania  Fjord  has  nothing  of  grandeur  about 
it,  like  the  wilder  fjords  on  the  west  coast  of  Norway. 
It  is  smiling  and  gracious,  with  beautifully  rounded  and 
interlocking  hills,  —  intervals  of  pine  woods,  with  green 
meadows  and  fields,  prettj*  villages  and  hamlets,  form.- 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A    TRAVELLER.  325 

houses  and  country-seats,  and  islands  unnumbered,  which 
deceive  the  eye  continually,  seeming  to  be  themselves  the 
shore.  We  left  Christiania  at  two  o'clock  ;  at  that  hour 
the  light  on  a  Norway  summer  day  is  like  high  noon  in 
other  parts  of  the  world,  —  in  fact,  it 's  noon  till  four 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  then  it  is  afternoon  till  ten, 
and  then  a  good,  long,  very  light  twilight  to  go  to  bed  by 
at  eleven  or  twelve,  and  if  you  want  to  get  up  again  at 
three  o'clock  in  the  morning  you  can  wake  without  any 
trouble,  for  it  is  broad  daylight :  all  of  which  is  funny  for 
once  or  twice,  or  perhaps  for  ten  times,  but  not  for  very  long. 
It  was  not  till  four  or  five  o'clock  that  we  began  to  see 
the  full  beauty  of  the  fjord ;  then  the  sun  had  gone  far 
enough  over  to  cast  a  shadow,  —  soften  all  the  forest  tops 
on  the  west  side,  and  cast  shadows  on  the  east  side.  The 
little  oases  of  bright  green  farm-lands,  with  their  clusters 
of  houses,  seemed  to  sink  deeper  and  deeper  into  their  dark 
pine-tree  settings,  —  the  fjord  grew  wider  and  wider,  and 
was  as  smooth  as  a  lake  :  now  and  then  we  drew  up  by  a 
little  village  and  half  stopped,  —  it  seemed  no  more  than 
that,  —  and  somebody  would  climb  on  or  off  the  steamer 
by  little  cockles  of  boats  that  bobbed  alongside.  Some- 
times we  came  to  a  full  stop,  and  la}'  several  minutes  at 
a  wharf,  loading  or  unloading  bags  of  grain.  I  think 
we  took  on  just  as  many  as  we  took  off,  —  like  a  game 
of  bean-bags  between  the  villages.  The  sailors  carried 
them  off  and  on  their  backs,  one  set  standing  still  in 
their  places  to  lift  the  bags  up  on  their  comrades'  backs  ; 
they  lifted  with  a  will,  and  then  folded  their  arms  and 
waited  till  the  bag-carriers  came  back  to  be  loaded  up 
again.  If  I  could  have  spoken  Norwegian,  I  should  have 
asked  whether  those  sets  of  men  took  turn  and  turn  about, 
or  whether  one  set  always  lifted  up  the  loads  and  the  others 
lugged  them,  —  probably  the  latter.  That's  the  way  it  is 
in  life  ;  but  I  never  saw  a  more  striking  example  of  it  than 
in  the  picture  these  sailors  made  standing  with  folded 
arms  doing  nothing,  waiting  till  their  fellows  came  back 
again  to  be  loaded  down  like  beasts  of  burden.  It  was 
at  "  Moss  "  we  saw  this,  —  a  pretty  name  for  a  little  town 
with  a  handful  of  gay-colored  houses,  red,  }'ellow,  and 
white,  set  in  green  fields  and  woods.  Women  came  on 
board  here  with  tray.-;  of  apples  and  pears  to  sell,  —  little  . 


826        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

wizened  pears  red  high  up  on  one  side,  like  some  old 
spinsters'  cheeks  in  New  England.  Children  came  too,  with 
cherries  tied  up  in  bunches  of  about  ten  to  a  bunch  ;  they 
looked  dear,  but  it  was  only  a  few  hundredths  of  a  quarter 
of  a  dollar  that  they  cost.  Since  I  have  found  out  that 
a  kroner  is  only  about  twenty-seven  cents,  and  that  it  takes 
one  hundred  ore  to  make  a  kroner,  all  the  things  that 
cost  only  a  few  ore  seem  to  me  so  ridiculously  cheap  as 
not  to  be  worth  talking  about.  These  children  with  the 
cherries  were  all  barefoot,  and  they  were  so  shy  that  they 
curled  and  mauled  their  little  brown  toes  all  the  time  they 
were  selling  their  cherries,  just  as  children  one  shade  less 
shy  twist  and  untwist  their  fingers. 

We  left  Moss  by  a  short  cut,  not  overland  exactly, 
but  next  door  to  it,  —  through  land.  The  first  thing  we 
knew  we  were  sailing  through  a  bridge  right  into  the 
town,  in  a  narrow  canal, — we  could  have  thrown  an  apple 
into  the  windows  of  some  of  the  houses  as  we  glided  by ; 
then  in  a  few  moments  out  we  were  again  into  the  broad 
open  fjord. 

At  six  o'clock  we  went  down  to  our  first  Danish  supper. 
The  "  Balder"  is  a  Danish  boat,  and  sailed  by  a  Danish 
captain,  and  conducted  on  Danish  methods ;  and  they 
pleased  us  greatly.  The  ordinary  Norwegian  supper  is  a 
mongrel  meal  of  nobody  knows  how  many  kinds  of  sausage, 
raw  ham,  raw  smoked  salmon,  sardines,  and  all  varie- 
ties of  cheese.  The  Danish  we  found  much  better,  having 
the  addition  of  hot  fish,  and  cutlets,  and  the  delicious 
Danish  butter.  One  good  result  of  Denmark's  lying  low, 
she  gets  splendid  pasturage  for  her  cows,  and  makes  a 
delicious  butter,  which  brings  the  highest  prices  in  the 
English  and  other  markets. 

When  we  came  up  from  supper  we  found  ourselves 
in  a  vast  open  sea ;  dim  shores  to  be  seen  in  the  east 
and  west,  —  in  the  east  pink  and  gray,  in  the  west  dark 
with  woods.  The  setting  sun  was  sinking  behind  them, 
and  its  yellow  light  etched  every  tree-top  on  the  clear  sky. 
Here  and  there  a  sail  gleamed  in  the  sun,  or  stood  out  white 
in  the  farther  horizon.  A  pink  halo  slowly  spread  around 
the  whole  outer  circumference  of  the  water ;  and  while  we 
were  looking  at  this,  all  of  a  sudden  we  were  not  in  an  open 
sea  at  all,  but  in  among  islands  again,  and  slowly  coming  to 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  327 

a  stop  between  two  stretches  of  lovely  shore, — big  solid 
green  fields  like  America's  on  one  side,  and  a  low  prom- 
ontory of  mossy  rocks  on  the  other.  A  handful  of  houses, 
with  one  large  and  conspicuous  one  in  the  centre,  stood 
between  the  green  fields  and  the  shore.  A  sign  was 
printed  on  this  house  in  big  letters ;  and  as  I  was  trying 
to  spell  it  out,  a  polite  Norwegian  at  my  elbow  said, 
"  Shoddy  factory!  We  make  shoddy  there ;  we  call  it 
so  after  the  English,"  bowing  flatteringly  as  if  it  were  a 
compliment  to  the  English.  Kradsidd  is  Norwegian  for 
shoddy,  and  sounds  worlds  more  respectable,  I  am  sure. 

The  roof  of  this  shoddy  factory  had  four  dormer  win- 
dows in  it,  with  their  tiled  roofs  running  up  full  width  to 
the  ridge-pole,  which  gave  the  roof  the  drollest  expression 
of  being  laid  in  box-plaits.  I  wish  somebody  would  make 
a  series  of  photographs  of  roofs  in  Norway  and  Denmark. 
The}'  are  the  most  picturesque  part  of  the  scenery ;  and  as 
for  their  "  sky-line,"  it  is  the  very  poetry  of  etching.  I 
thought  I  had  seen  the  perfection  of  the  beaut}'  of  irregu- 
larity in  the  sky-line  in  Edinburgh ;  but  Edinburgh  roofs 
are  monotonous  and  straight  in  comparison  with  the  hud- 
dling of  corners  and  angles  in  Scandinavian  gables  and 
ridges  and  chimneys  and  attics.  Add  to  this  freaky  and 
fantastic  and  shifting  shape  the  beaut}'  of  color  and  of 
fine  regularity  of  small  curves  in  the  red  tile,  and  you  have 
got  as  it  were  a  mid-air  world  of  beauty  by  itself.  As  I 
was  studying  out  the  points  where  these  box-plaited  dor- 
mer windows  set  into  their  roof,  the  same  polite  Norwe- 
gian voice  said  to  a  friend  by  his  side,  "I  have  read  it 
over  twenty-five  ones."  He  pronounced  the  word  read  as 
for  the  present  indicative,  which  made  his  adverbs  of  time 
at  the  end  fetill  droller.  Really  one  of  the  great  pleasures 
of  foreign  travel  is  the  English  one  hears  spoken  ;  and  it 
is  a  pleasure  for  which  we  no  doubt  render  a  full  equiva- 
lent in  turn  when  we  try  speaking  in  any  tongue  except 
our  own.  But  it  is  hard  to  conceive  of  any  intelligible 
English  French  or  German  being  so  droll  as  German  or 
French  English  can  be  and  yet  be  perfectly  intelligible. 
Polite  creatures  that  they  all  are,  never  to  smile  when  we 
speak  their  language ! 

As  the  sun  sank,  the  rosy  horizon-halo  gathered  itself  up 
and  floated  about  in  pink  fleeces  ;  the  sky  turned  pale 


328        NORWAY.  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

green,  like  the  sky  before  dawn.  Latitude  plays  strange 
pranks  with  sunsets  and  sunrises.  Norway,  I  think,  must 
be  the  only  place  in  the  world  where  you  could  mistake 
one  for  the  other ;  but  it  is  literally  true  that  in  Norway  it 
would  be  very  easy  to  do  so  if  you  happened  not  to  know 
which  end  of  the  day  it  was. 

When  we  went  down  into  our  staterooms  sorrow  awaited 
us.  To  the  eye  the  staterooms  had  been  most  alluring. 
One  and  all,  we  had  exclaimed  that  never  had  we  seen  so 
fine  staterooms  in  a  Norwegian  steamboat.  All  the  time 
we  were  undressing  we  eyed  with  complacency  the  two 
fine  red  sofas,  on  one  of  which  we  were  to  sleep. 
Strangely  enough,  no  one  of  us  observed  the  shape  of 
the  sofa,  or  thought  to  try  the  consistency  of  it.  Our 
experiences,  therefore,  were  nearly  simultaneous,  and 
unanimous  to  a  degree,  as  we  discovered  afterwards  on 
comparing  notes.  The  first  thing  we  did  on  lying  down 
on  our  bed  was  to  roll  off  it.  Then  we  got  up  and  on 
again,  and  tried  to  get  farther  back  on  it.  As  it  was  only 
about  the  width  of  a  good-sized  pocket-handkerchief,  and 
rounded  up  in  the  middle,  this  proved  to  be  impossible. 
Then  we  got  up  and  tried  to  pull  it  out  from  the  wall.  Vain ! 
It  was  upholstered  to  the  board  as  immovable  as  the  stack- 
pipe  of  the  boat.  Then  we  tried  once  more  to  adjust  our- 
selves to  it.  Presently  we  discovered  that  it  was  not  only 
narrow  and  rounding,  but  harder  than  it  would  have 
seemed  possible  that  anything  in  shape  of  tufted  uphol- 
stered velvet  could  be.  We  began  to  ache  in  spots ;  the 
ache  spread  :  we  ached  all  over ;  we  could  neither  toss,  twist, 
nor  turn  on  the  summit  of  this  narrow  tumulus.  Misery 
set  in  ;  indignation  and  restlessness  followed ;  seasickness, 
in  addition,  seemed  for  once  a  trifle.  The  mo'st  indefati- 
gable member  of  the  party,  being  also  the  most  fatigued, 
succeeded  at  last  in  procuring  a  half-dozen  small  square 
pillows,  —  one  shade  less  hard  than  the  sofa,  she  thought 
when  she  first  lay  down  on  them,  but  long  before  morning 
she  began  to  wonder  whether  they  were  not  even  harder. 
Such  a  night  lingers  long  in  one's  memory ;  it  was  a  clos- 
ing chapter  to  our  experience  of  Norwegian  beds,  —  a  fit- 
ting climax,  if  anything  so  small  could  be  properly  called  a 
climax.  How  it  has  ever  come  about  that  the  Norwegian 
notion  of  a  bed  should  be  so  restricted,  I  am  at  a  loss 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  329 

to  imagine.  They  are  simply  child's  cribs,  —  no  more  ; 
as  short  as  narrow,  and  in  many  instances  so  narrow 
that  it  is  impossible  to  turn  over  quickly  in  them  without 
danger.  I  have  again  and  again  been  suddenly  waked, 
finding  myself  just  going  over  the  edge.  The  making  of 
them  is  as  queer  as  the  size.  A  sort  of  bulkhead  small 
mattress  is  slipped  in  under  the  head,  lifting  it  up  at  an 
angle  admirably  suited  to  an  asthmatic  patient  who  can't 
breathe  lying  down,  or  to  a  small  boy  who  likes  to  coast 
down-hill*  in  his  bed  of  a  morning.  The  single  pillow  is 
placed  on  this  ;  the  short,  narrow  sheet  flung  loosely  over 
it ;  blanket,  ditto  ;  coverlet,  ditto  —  it  may  or  may  not 
be  straight  or  smooth.  The  whole  expression  of  the  bed 
is  as  if  it  had  been  just  hastily  smoothed  up  temporarily 
till  there  should  be  time  enough  to  make  it.  In  perfect 
good  faith  I  sent  for  a  chambermaid  one  night,  in  the  early 
days  of  my  Norway  journey,  and  made  signs  to  her  that  I 
would  like  to  have  my  bed  made,  when  the  poor  thing  had 
already  made  it  to  the  very  best  of  her  abilit}',  and  en- 
tirely in  keeping  with  the  customs  of  her  country. 

It  is  ver}-  needless  to  say  that  we  all  were  up  early  the 
next  morning ;  and  there  was  something  ludicrous  enough 
in  the  tone  in  which  each  inquired  eagerly  of  each, 
"  Did  you  ever  know  such  beds?"  At  ten  we  were  an- 
chored off  the  little  town  of  Frederikssund ;  and  here  the 
boat  lay  five  mortal  hours,  doing  nothing  but  unloading 
and  taking  on  bags  of  bran. 

Another  big  steamer  was  lying  alongside,  doing  the  same 
thing.  This  was  our  first  glimpse  of  Denmark.  Very  flat 
it  looked,  — just  out  of  water,  and  no  more,  —  like  Holland. 
The  sailors  who  were  carrying  the  bags  of  bran  wore  queer 
pointed  hoods  on  their  heads,  with  long,  tail-like  pieces  com- 
ing down  behind,  which  made  them  look  like  elves, — at  least 
it  did  for  the  first  hour  ;  after  that  they  no  longer  looked 
queer.  If  we  had  gone  on  shore,  we  could  have  seen  the 
Royal  Estate  of  laegerspriis,  which  has  belonged  to  kings 
of  Denmark  ever  since  the  year  1300,  and  has  a  fine  park, 
and  a  house  decorated  by  sculptures  by  "Wiedewelt, — a 
Danish  sculptor  of  the  last  century,  —  and  an  old  sepulchre 
which  dates  back  to  the  stone  age,  and,  best  of  all,  a  great 
old  oak,  called  the  King's  Oak,  which  is  the  largest  in  Den- 
mark, and  dates  back  farther  than  anybody  will  know  till 


330        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY. 

it  dies.  A  tree  is  the  only  living  thing  which  can  keep  the 
secret  of  its  own  age,  is  it  not?  Nobocty  can  tell  within  a 
hundred  or  two  of  years  anything  about  it  so  long  as  the 
tree  can  hold  its  head  up.  The  circumference  of  this  tree 
is  said  to  be  forty-two  feet  four  feet  from  the  ground,  — 
a  pretty  respectable  tree,  considering  the  size  of  Denmark 
itself.  Now  we  begin  to  see  where  the  old  Vikings  got 
the  oak  to  build  their  ships.  They  carried  it  up  from 
Denmark,  which  must  have  been  in  those  days  a  great 
forest  of  beech  and  oak  to  have  kept  so  many  till  now.  It 
is  only  a  few  miles  from  Frederikssund,  also,  to  Havelse, 
•which  is  celebrated  for  its  "kitchen  middings," — the 
archaeological  name  for  kitchen  refuse  which  got  buried 
up  hundreds  of  years  ago.  Even  potato  parings  become 
highly  important  if  you  keep  them  long  enough !  They 
will  at  least  establish  the  fact  that  somebody  ate  potatoes 
at  that  date ;  and  all  things  hang  together  so  in  this  queer 
world  that  there  is  no  telling  how  much  any  one  fact  may 
prove  or  disprove.  For  myself,  I  don't  care  so  much  for 
what  they  ate  in  those  days  as  for  what  they  wore,  —  next 
to  what  they  did  in  the  way  of  fighting  and  making  love. 
I  saw  the  other  day,  in  Christiania,  a  whole  trayful  of 
things  which  were  taken  from  a  burial  mound  opened  in 
Norway  last  spring.  A  Viking  had  been  buried  there  in 
his  ship.  The  hull  was  entire,  and  I  have  stood  in  it ;  but 
not  even  the  old  blackened  hull,  nor  the  oars,  stirred  me 
so  much  as  the  ornaments  he  and  his  horses  had  worn,  — 
the  bosses  of  the  shields,  and  queer  little  carved  bits  of 
iron  and  silver  which  had  held  the  harnesses  together ;  one 
exquisitely  wrought  horse's  head,  only  about  two  inches 
long,  which  must  have  been  a  beautiful  ornament  wherever 
it  was  placed.  If  there  had  been  a  fish-bone  found  left  from 
his  last  dinner  or  from  the  funeral  feast  which  the  relations 
had  at  his  wake,  I  should  not  have  cared  half  so  much  for 
it.  But  tastes  differ. 

An  afternoon  more  of  sailing  and  another  awful  night 
on  the  red  velvet  ridges,  and  we  came  to  Copenhagen 
itself,  at  five  of  the  morning.  At  four  we  had  thought  it 
must  be  near,  — long  strips  of  green  shore,  with  trees  and 
houses,  —  so  flat  that  it  looked  narrow,  and  -seemed  to 
unroll  like  a  ribbon  as  we  sailed  by ;  but  when  we  slipped 
into  the  harbor  we  saw  the  difference,  —  wharves  and 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A  TRAVELLER.  331 

crowds  of  masts  and  warehouses,  just  like  any  other  city, 
and  the  same  tiresome  farce  of  making  believe  examine 
your  luggage.  I  should  respect  customs  and  custom- 
houses more  if  they  did  as  they  say  they  will  do.  As  it 
is,  to  smuggle  seems  to  me  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  as 
well  as  the  most  alluring.  I  have  never  smuggled  because 
I  have  never  had  the  means  necessary  to  do  it ;  but  I  could 
have  smuggled  thousands  of  dollars  worth  of  goods,  if  I 
had  had  them,  through  every  custom-house  I  have  ever 
seen.  A  comrnissionnaire  with  a  shining  beaver  hat  stood 
on  the  shore  to  meet  us,  we  having  been  passed  on  with 
"  recommendations"  from  the  kindly  people  of  the  Scan- 
dinavie  in  Christiania  to  the  King  of  Denmark  Hotel 
people  in  Copenhagen.  Nothing  is  so  comfortable  in  trav- 
elling as  to  be  waited  for  bj*  your  landlord.  The  difference 
between  arriving  unlocked  for  and  arriving  as  an  expected 
customer  is  about  like  the  difference  between  arriving  at  the 
house  of  a  friend  and  arriving  at  that  of  an  enemy.  The 
commissionaire  had  that  pathetic  air  of  having  seen  better 
days  which  is  so  universal  in  his  class.  One  would  think 
that  the  last  vocation  in  the  world  which  a  "decayed" 
gentleman  would  choose  would  be  that  of  showing  other 
gentlemen  their  waj-  about  cities  ;  it  is  only  to  be  explained 
by  the  same  morbid  liking  to  be  tantalized  which  makes 
hungry  beggars  stand  by  the  hour  with  their  noses  against 
the  outside  of  the  panes  of  a  pastry-cook's  window,  — 
which  they  all  do,  if  they  can !  Spite  of  our  flaming 
"recommendations,"  which  had  preceded  us  from  our 
last  employer,  the  landlord  of  the  Scandinavie,  satisfac- 
tory rooms  were  not  awaiting  us.  Sara  Bernhardt  was 
in  town,  and  every  hotel  was  crowded  with  people  who  had 
come  for  a  night  or  two  to  see  and  hear  her.  It  is  won- 
derful how  much  room  a  person  of  her  sort  can  take  up  in 
a  city  ;  and  if  they  add,  as  she  does,  the  aroma  of  a  distinct 
and  avowed  disreputability,  they  take  up  twice  as  much 
room  !  Since  her  visit  to  England  I  wonder  she  does  not 
add  to  her  open  avowal  of  disregard  of  all  the  laws  and 
moralities  which  decent  people  hold  in  esteem,  "  By  per- 
mission of  the  Queen,"  or  ';  To  the  Royal  Family." 

But  this  is  not  telling  3-011  about  Copenhagen.  It  was 
five  o'clock  when  we  landed,  and  before  seven  1  had  driven 
with  the-  fommissionnaire  to  each  one  of  the  four  first-class 


332        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY. 

hotels  in  Copenhagen  in  search  of  sunny  rooms.  None 
to  be  had !  All  four  of  the  hotels  were  fully  occupied, 
as  I  said,  by  Sara  Bernbardt  in  some  shape  or  other. 
So  we  made  the  best  of  the  best  we  could  do,  —  break- 
fasted, slept,  lunched,  and  at  two  o'clock  were  ready 
to  begin  to  see  Copenhagen.  At  first  we  were  disap- 
pointed, as  in  Christiania,  by  its  modern  look.  It  is  a 
dreadful  pity  that  old  cities  will  burn  down  and  be  rebuilt, 
and  that  all  cities  must  have  such  a  monotony  of  repeti- 
tions of  blocks  of  houses.  By  the  end  of  another  century 
there  won't  be  an  old  city  left  anywhere  in  the  world. 
There  are  acres  of  blocks  of  houses  in  Copenhagen  to-day 
that  might  have  been  built  anywhere  else,  and  fit  in  any- 
where else  just  as  well  as  here.  When  you  look  at  them  a 
little  more  closely,  you  see  that  there  are  bits  of  terra-cotta 
work  in  friezes  and  pilasters  and  brackets  here  and  there, 
which  would  not  have  been  done  anywhere  except  in  the 
home  of  Thorwaldsen.  If  he  had  done  nothing  else  for 
art  than  to  stamp  a  refined  and  graceful  expression  on  all 
the  minor  architectural  decorations  of  his  native  city,  that 
would  have  been  worth  while.  There  is  not  an  architec- 
tural monstrosity  in  the  city,  —  not  one  ;  and  many  of  the 
buildings  have  an  excellent  tone  of  quiet,  conventional 
decoration  which  is  pleasing  to  the  eye.  The  brick-work 
particularly  is  well  clone  ;  and  simple  variations  of  design 
are  effectively  used.  You  see  often  recurring  over  door- 
ways and  windows  terra-cotta  reproductions  of  some  of 
Thorwaldsen's  popular  figures  ;  and  the}-  are  never  marred 
by  anything  fantastic  or  bizarre  in  cornice  or  moulding 
above  or  around  them.  Among  the  most  noticeable  of  the 
modern  blocks  are  some  built  for  the  dwellings  of  poor  peo- 
ple. They  are  in  short  streets  leading  to  the  Reservoir,  and 
having  therefore  a  good  sweep  of  air  through  them.  They 
are  but  two  stories  and  a  half  high,  pale  yellow  brick, 
neatly  finished  ;  and  each  house  has  a  tiny  doorvard  filled 
with  flowers.  There  are  threo  tenements  to  a  house,  each 
having  three  rooms.  The  expression  of  these  rows  of  gay 
little  yellow  houses  with  red  roofs  and  flower-filled  door- 
yards  and  windows,  and  each  doorway  bearing  its  two  or 
three  signs  of  trade  or  artisanry,  was  enough  to  do  one's 
heart  good.  The  rents  are  low,  bringing  the  tenements 
within  easj-  reach  of  poor  people's  purses.  Yet  there  is 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  333 

evidently  an  obligation  —  a  certain  sort  of  social  standard 
—  involved  in  the  neighborhood  which  will  keep  it  always 
from  squalor  or  untidiness.  I  doubt  if  anybody  would  dare 
to  live  in  those  rows  and  not  have  flowers  in  his  front  yard 
and  windows.  For  myself,  I  would  far  rather  live  in  one 
of  these  little  houses  than  in  either  of  the  four  great  pal- 
aces which  make  the  Royal  Square,  Amalienborg,  and  look 
as  much  like  great  penitentiaries  as  like  anything  else, 
— high,  bulky,  unadorned  gray  piles,  flat  and  straight  walls, 
and  tiresome,  dingy  windows,  and  the  pavements  up  to 
their  door-sills.  They  may  be  splendid  the  other  side  the 
walls,  —  probably  are  ;  but  they  are  dreary  objects  to  look 
at  as  you  come  home  of  an  evening.  The  horse-cars  are 
the  most  unique  thing  in  the  modern  parts  of  Copenhagen. 
How  two  horses  can  draw  them  I  don't  see  :  but  they  do ; 
and  if  two  horses  can  draw  two-story  horse-cars,  why  don't 
we  have  them  in  America,  and  save  such  overcrowding? 
The  horse-cars  here  not  only  have  a  double  row  of  seats 
on  top  as  they  have  in  London,  but  they  have  a  roof  over 
those  seats,  which  nearly  doubles  the  apparent  height. 
As  they  come  towards  you  they  look  like  a  great  square- 
cornered  boat,  with  a  long  pilot-house  on  top.  Of  course 
they  carry  just  double  the  number.  Women  never  ride 
on  the  top ;  but  men  do  not  mind  going  upstairs  outside  a 
horse-car  and  sitting  in  mid-air  above  the  heads  of  the 
crowd  ;  and  if  two  horses  really  are  able  to  draw  so  many, 
it  is  a  gain. 

The  one  splendid  sight  in  Copenhagen  is  its  great 
dragon  spire.  This,  one  could  stand  and  gaze  at  by 
the  da}'.  It  is  made  of  four  dragons  twisted  together, 
heads  down,  tails  up ;  heads  pointing  to  the  four  corners 
of  the  earth  ;  tails  tapering  and  twisting,  arid  twisting  and 
tapering,  till  they  taper  out  into  an  iron  rod,  which  mounts 
still  higher,  with  three  gilded  balls,  and  three  wrought 
gilded  circles  on  it,  and  finally  ends  in  a  huge  gilded 
open-work  weather-cock.  This  is  on  an  old  brick  build- 
ing now  used  as  the  Exchange.  It  was  built  early  in 
1600  b}-  Christian  IV.,  who  seems  to  me  to  have  clone 
everything  best  worth  doing  that  was  ever  done  in  Den- 
mark. His  monogram  (  (£  )  is  forever  cropping  out  on 
all  the  splendid  old  things.  They  are  enlarging  this  Ex- 
change now ;  and  the  new  red  brick  and  glaring  white 


334        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

marble  make  a  very  unpleasing  contrast  to  the  old  part 
of  the  building,  although  every  effort  has  been  made  to 
copy  the  style  of  it  exactly.  It  is  long,  and  not  high, 
the  wall  divided  into  spaces  by  carved  pilasters  between 
every  two  windows.  Each  pilaster  begins  as  a  man  or  a 
woman,  —  arms  cut  off  at  the  shoulders,  breasts  and  shoul- 
ders looking  from  a  distance  grotesquely  like  four  humps. 
Where  the  legs  should  begin,  the  trunk  ends  in  a  great  gar- 
goyle, —  a  lion's  head,  or  a  man's,  or  a  bull's,  —  some 
grotesque,  some  beautiful ;  below  this,  a  conventional  ta- 
pering support.  In  the  pointed  arch  of  each  of  the  lower 
windows,  also  a  carved  head,  no  two  of  them  alike,  many 
of  them  beautiful.  It  is  a  grand  old  building,  and  one 
might  study  it  and  draw  from  it  by  the  week.  Passing 
this  and  crossing  an  arm  of  the  sea,  — which,  by  the  way, 
you  are  perpetually  doing  in  Copenhagen  to  go  anywhere, 
the  sea  never  having  fully  made  up  its  mind  to  abandon 
the  situation,  — you  come  to  another  quaint  old  building  in 
the  suburbs,  called  Christianshaven.  This  is  Vor  Frel- 
ser's  Church  (Our  Saviour's  Church),  built  only  fifty  years 
later  than  the  Exchange.  It  is  a  dark  red  brick  church, 
with  tiny  flat  dormer  windows  let  in  and  painted  green  on  a 
shining  tile  roof;  a  square  belfry  ;  clock  face  painted  red, 
black,  and  blue ;  above  this,  a  spire,  first  six-sided  and 
then  round,  288  feet  high,  covered  with  copper,  which  is 
bright  green  in  places,  and  wound  round  and  round  by  a 
glittering  gilded  staircase,  which  goes  to  the  very  top  and 
ends  under  a  huge  gilt  ball,  under  which  twelve  people 
can  stand.  This  also  is  a  fine  kind  of  spire  to  have  at 
hand  at  sunset ;  it  flames  out  like  a  ladder  into  the  sky. 

One  more  old  church  has  a  way  up,  which  is  worth 
telling,  though  you  can't  see  it  from  the  outside.  This 
is  another  of  that  same  Christian  IV.'s  buildings,  — 
it  was  built  for  an  observatory,  and  used  for  that  for  two 
hundred  years,  but  then  joined  to  a  church.  The  tower 
is  round,  115  feet  high,  48  feet  in  diameter,  and  made  of 
two  hollow  cylinders.  Between  these  is  the  way  up,  a 
winding  stone  road,  smooth  and  broad ;  and  if  jon  '11 
believe  it,  in  1716  that  rascal  Catherine  of  Russia  actually 
drove  up  to  the  top  of  it  in  a  coach  and  four,  Peter  going 
ahead  on  horseback.  I  walked  up  two  of  the  turns  of  this 
stone  roadway,  and  it  made  me  dizzy  to  think  what  a 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  835 

clatter  the  five  horses'  hoofs  must  have  made,  with  stone 
above,  below,  and  around  them  ;  and  what  a  place  it  would 
have  been  to  have  knocked  brains  out  if  the  horses  had 
been  frightened !  In  this  inside  cylinder  all  the  Univer- 
sity treasures  were  hidden  when  the  English  bombarded 
the  city  in  1807,  and  a  very  safe  place  it  must  have  been. 

Opposite  this  church  is  still  another  of  Christian  IV. 's 
good  works,  —  a  large  brick  building  put  up  for  the  ac- 
commodation of  poor  students  at  the  University.  One 
hundred  poor  students  still  have  free  lodgings  in  this 
building,  but  part  of  it  looks  as  if  its  roof  would  fall  in 
before  long. 

Along  the  arms  of  the  sea  which  stretch  into  or  across 
the  city  —  for  some  of  them  go  way  through,  come  out,  and 
join  the  outer  waters  again  —  are  rows  of  high  warehouses 
for  grain,  some  seven  and  eight  stories  high.  These  have 
two-storied  dormer  windows,  and  terraced  roofs%  and  a 
great  beak  like  a  ship's  prow  projecting  from  the  ridge-pole 
of  the  dormer  window.  From  this  the  grain  is  lowered 
and  hoisted  to  and  from  the  ships  below.  The  ships  lie 
crowded  in  these  narrow  arms,  as  in  a  harbor,  and  make 
picturesque  lanes  of  mast-tops  through  the  city.  On  many 
of  them  are  hung  great  strings  of  flounders  d^'ing,  fes- 
tooned on  cords,  from  rope  to  rope,  scores  of  them  on  a 
single  sloop.  They  look  better  than  they  smell ;  you  could 
not  spare  them  out  of  the  picture. 

The  last  thing  we  saw  this  afternoon  was  the  statue  of 
Hans  Christian  Andersen,  which  has  just  been  put  up  in 
the  great  garden  of  Rosenberg  Castle.  This  garden  is 
generally  called  Kongen's  Have  ("The  King's  Garden"). 
It  was  planned  by  the  good  Christian,  but  contains  now 
very  little  of  his  original  design.  Two  splendid  avenues 
of  horse-chestnut  trees  and  a  couple  of  old  bronze  lions 
are  all  that  is  left  as  he  saw  it.  It  is  a  great  place  of 
resort  for  the  middle  classes  with  their  children.  A  yearly 
tax  of  two  kroners  (about  fifty  cents)  permits  a  family  to 
take  its  children  there  every  day ;  and  I  am  sure  there 
must  have  been  two  hundred  children  in  sight  as  I  walked 
up  the  dark  dense  shaded  avenue  of  linden  trees  at  the 
upper  end  of  which  sits  the  beloved  Hans  Christian,  with 
the  sunlight  falling  on  his  head.  "The  children  come 
here  every  day,"  said  the  counuissionuaire  ;  "  and  that  is 


336        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

the  reason  they  put  him  here,  so  they  can  see  him."  He 
looked  as  if  he  also  saw  them.  A  more  benignant,  lifelike, 
tender  look  was  never  wrought  in  bronze.  He  sits,  half 
wrapped  in  a  cloak,  his  left  hand  holding  a  book  carelessly 
on  his  knee,  the  right  hand  lifted  as  if  in  benediction  of 
the  children.  The  statue  is  raised  a  few  feet  on  a  plain 
pedestal,  in  a  large  oval  bed  of  flowers :  on  one  side  the 
pedestal  is  carved  the  "Child  and  the  Stork;"  on  the 
other,  the  group  of  ducks,  with  the  "  ugly  "  one  in  the  mid- 
dle,—  pictures  that  every  little  child  will  understand  and 
love  to  see  ;  on  the  front  is  his  name  and  a  wreath  of  the 
bay  he  so  well  earned.  Written  above  is,  — 

"  PUT  UP  BY  THE  DANISH  PEOPLE  ;  " 

and  I  thought  as  I  stood  there  that  he  was  more  to  be 
envied  than  Christian  IV.  with  his  splendors  of  art  and 
architecture,  or  than  the  whole  Danish  dynasty,  with  their 
priceless  treasures  and  their  jewelled  orders.  And  so 
ended  our  first  day  in  Copenhagen. 

The  next  morning,  Sunday,  I  drove  out  to  church  in  the 
island  of  Amager,  of  which  that  paradoxical  compound  of 
truth  and  falsehood,  Murray,  says :  "  It  offers  absolutely 
nothing  of  interest."  I  always  find  it  very  safe  to  go  to 
places  of  which  that  is  said.  Amager  is  Copenhagen's 
vegetable  garden.  It  is  an  island  four  miles  square,  and 
absolutely  flat,  —  as  flat  as  a  piece  of  pasteboard  ;  in  fact, 
while  I  was  driving  on  it,  it  seemed  to  me  to  bear  the 
same  relation  to  flatness  that  the  Irishman's  gun  did  to  re- 
coiling, —  "  If  it  recoiled  at  all,  it  recoiled  forrards,"  —  so 
it  was  a  very  safe  gun.  If  Amager  is  anything  more  or  less 
than  flat,  it  is  bent  inwards  ;  for  actually  when  I  looked 
off  to  the  water  it  seemed  to  be  higher  than  the  land,  and 
the  ships  looked  as  if  they  might  any  minute  come  sailing 
down  among  the  cabbages.  Early  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury it  was  filled  up  by  Dutch  people  ;  and  there  they  are 
to  this  da}-,  wearing  the  same  clothes  and  raising  cab- 
bages just  as  the}'  did  three  hundred  years  ago.  To  reach 
Amager  from  Copenhagen,  you  cross  several  arms  of  the 
sea  and  go  through  one  or  two  suburbs  called  by  different 
names  ;  but  }*ou  would  never  know  that  you  were  not  driv- 
ing in  Copenhagen  all  the  time  until  you  come  out  into  the 
greenery  of  Auiager  itself.  It  was  good  luck  to  go  of  a 


ENCYCLICALS   OF  A   TRAVELLER.  337 

Sunday.  All  the  Dutch  dames  were  out  and  about  in 
their  best,  driving  in  carts  and  walking,  or  sitting  in  their 
doorways.  The  women  were  li  sights  to  behold."  The 
poorer  ones  wore  shirred  sunbonnets  on  their  heads,  made 
of  calico,  coming  out  like  an  old  poke-bonnet  in  front,  and 
with  full  capes  which  set  out  at  a  fly-away  angle  behind. 
They  seemed  to  have  got  the  conception  of  the  cape  from 
the  arms  of  their  own  windmills  (of  which,  by  the  way, 
there  are  several  on  the  island  ;  and  their  revolving  arms 
add  to  the  island's  expression  of  being  insecurely  at  sea !). 
Next  below  the  sunbonnet  came  a  gay  handkerchief  crossed 
on  the  breast,  over  a  black  gown  with  tight  sleeves ;  a 
full  bright  blue  apron,  reaching  half-way  round  the  waist 
and  coming  down  to  within  two  inches  of  the  bottom  of 
the  overskirt,  completed  their  rig.  It  was  droller  than  it 
sounds.  Some  of  them  wore  three-cornered  handkerchiefs 
pinned  outside  their  poke-bonnets,  pinned  under  their 
chins,  and  the  point  falling  over  the  neck  behind.  These 
were  sometimes  plain  colors,  sometimes  white,  embroi- 
ered  or  trimmed  with  lace.  The  men  looked  exactly 
like  an}-  countrymen  in  England  or  Scotland  or  America. 
If  we  have  n't  an  international  anything  else,  we  have 
very  nearly  an  international  costume  for  the  masculine 
human  creature ;  and  it  is  as  ugly  and  unpicturesque  a 
thing  as  malignity  itself  could  devise.  The  better  class  of 
women  wore  a  plain  black  bonnet,  made  in  the  same  poke 
shape  as  the  sunbonnets,  but  without  any  cape  at  all  on  the 
back,  only  a  little  full  crown  tucked  in,  and  the  fronts 
coming  round  very  narrow  in  the  back  of  the  neck,  and  tied 
there  with  narrow  black  ribbons.  Don't  fancy  these  were 
the  only  strings  that  held  the  roof  in  its  place,  —  not  at  all. 
Two  very  broad  strings,  of  bright  blue,  or  red,  or  purple, 
as  it  might  be,  came  from  somewhere  high  up  inside  the 
front,  and  tied  under  the  chin  in  a  huge  bow,  so  that  their 
faces  looked  as  if  they  had  first  been  tied  up  in  broad  rib- 
bon for  the  toothache,  and  then  the  huge  bonnet  put  on  out- 
side of  all.  Strangely  enough,  the  effect  on  the  faces  was 
not  ugly.  Old  faces  were  sheltered  and  softened,  double 
chins  and  scraggy  necks  were  hid,  and  younger  faces 
peered  out  prettily  from  under  the  scoop  and  among  the 
folds  of  ribbon ;  and  the  absolute  plainness  of  the  bon- 
net itself,  having  no  trimming  save  a  straight  band  across 
22 


338        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY. 

the  middle,  gave  the  charm  of  simplicity  to  the  outline, 
and  vindicated  the  worth  of  that  most  emphatically  when 
set  side  by  side  in  the  church  pews  with  the  modern  bon- 
nets,—  all  bunches  and  bows,  and  angles  and  tilts  of 
feathers  and  flowers  and  rubbish  generally. 

The  houses  were  all  comfortable,  and  some  of  them  very 
pretty.  Low,  long,  chiefly  of  a  light  yellow  straw,  latticed 
off  by  dark  lines  of  wood-work,  some  of  them  entirely  mat- 
ted with  ivy,  like  cottages  in  the  English  lake  district,  all 
of  them  with  either  red-tiled  or  thatched  roofs,  and  the 
greater  part  surrounded  by  hedges.  The  thatched  roofs 
were  delightful.  The  thatch  is  held  on  and  fastened  down 
at  the  ridge-pole  by  long  bits  of  crooked  wood,  one  on 
each  side,  the  two  crossing  and  lapping  at  the  ridge-pole 
and  held  together  there  by  pins.  The  effect  of  a  long,  low 
roof  set  thick  with  these  cross-pieces  at  the  top  is  almost 
as  if  dozens  of  slender  fishes  were  set  there  with  forked  tails 
up  in  the  air ;  and  when  half  a  dozen  sparrows  are  flit- 
ting and  alighting  on  these  projecting  points  of  board,  the 
effect  is  of  a  still  odder  trimming.  Some  of  the  red-tiled 
roofs  have  a  set  pattern  in  white  painted  along  the  ridge- 
pole, corners,  and  eaves.  These  are  very  gay  ;  and  some 
of  the  thatched  roofs  are  grown  thick  with  a  dark  olive- 
green  moss,  which  in  a  cross  sunlight  is  as  fine  a  color  as 
was  ever  wrought  into  an  old  tapestry,  and  looks  more  like 
ancient  velvet. 

The  church  in  Amager  is  new,  brick,  and  ugly  of  ex- 
terior. But  the  inside  is  good  ;  the  wood-work,  choir,  pul- 
pit, sounding-board,  railings,  pews,  all  carved  in  a  simple 
conventional  pattern,  and  painted  dark-olive  brown,  re- 
lieved by  claret  and  green,  —  in  a  combination  borrowed 
no  doubt  from  some  old  wood-work  centuries  back.  In 
the  centre  a  candelabra,  hanging  by  a  red  cord,  marked 
off  by  six  gilded  balls  at  intervals ;  the  candelabra  itself 
being  simply  a  great  gilded  ball,  with  the  simplest  possible 
candle-holders  projecting  from  it.  Two  high  candle-holders 
inside  the  railing  had  each  three  brass  candlesticks  in  the 
shape  of  a  bird,  with  his  long  tail  curled  under  his  feet 
to  stand  on,  —  a  fantastic  design,  but  singularly  graceful, 
considering  its  absurdity.  The  minister  wore  a  long  black 
gown  and  high,  full  ruff,  exactly  like  those  we  see  in  the 
pictures  of  the  divines  of  the  Reformation  times.  He  had 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A    TRAVELLER.  839 

a  fine  and  serious  face,  of  oval  contour ;  therefore  the  ruff 
suited  him.  On  short  necks  and  below  round  faces  it  is 
simply  grotesque,  and  no  more  dignified  than  a  turkey- 
cock's  ruffled  feathers.  He  preached  with  great  fervor 
and  warmth  of  manner ;  but  as  I  could  not  understand  a 
word  he  said,  I  should  have  found  the  sermon  long  if  I  had 
not  been  very  busy  in  studying  the  bonnets  and  faces,  and 
choir  of  little  girls  in  the  galley.  More  than  half  the  con- 
gregation were  in  the  ordinary  modern  dress,  and  would 
have  passed  unnoticed  anywhere.  All  the  men  looked  like 
well-to-do  New  England  farmers,  coloring  and  all ;  for  the 
blue-eyed,  fair-haired  type  prevails.  But  the  women  who 
had  had  the  sense  and  sensibility  to  stick  to  their  own 
national  clothes  were  as  pretty  as  pictures,  as  their  faces 
showed  above  the  dark  olive-brown  pews,  framed  in  their 
front  porches  of  bonnets,  —  for  that  is  really  what  they  are 
like,  the  faces  are  so  far  back  in  them.  Some  were  lined 
with  bright  lavender  satin,  full-puffed  ;  some  with  purple  ; 
some  with  blue.  The  strings  never  matched  the  lining, 
but  were  of  a  violent  contrast,  —  light  blue  in  the  purple, 
gay  plaid  in  the  lavender,  and  so  on.  The  aprons  were 
all  of  the  same  shade  of  vivid  blue,  —  as  blue  as  the  sky, 
and  darker.  They  were  all  shirred  down  about  two  inches 
below  the  waist ;  some  of  them  trimmed  down  the  sides  at 
the  back  with  lace  or  velvet,  but  none  of  them  on  the 
bottom.  One  old  woman  who  sat  in  front  of  me  wore  a 
conical  and  pointed  cap  of  black  velvet  and  plush,  held 
on  her  head  by  broad  gray  silk  strings,  tied  with  a  big 
bow  under  her  chin,  covering  her  ears  and  cheeks.  The 
cap  was  shaped  like  a  funnel  carried  out  to  a  point,  which 
projected  far  behind  her,  stiff  and  rigid ;  yet  it  was  not 
an  ungraceful  thing  on  the  head.  These,  I  am  told,  are 
rarely  seen  now. 

When  the  sermon  was  done,  the  minister  disappeared 
for  a  moment,  and  came  back  in  gorgeous  claret  velvet  and 
white  robes,  with  a  great  gilt  cross  on  his  back.  The 
candles  on  the  altar  were  lighted,  and  the  sacrament  was 
administered  to  a  dozen  or  more  kneeling  outside  the  rail- 
ing. This  part  of  the  ceremony  seemed  to  me  not  very 
Lutheran  ;  but  I  suppose  that  is  precise!}-  the  thing  it  was, 
—  Luther-an,  — one  of  the  relics  he  kept  when  he  threw 
overboard  the  rest  of  the  superstitions.  Before  this 


340        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

ceremony  the  sexton  came  and  unlocked  the  pew  we  occu- 
pied, and  I  discovered  for  the  first  time  that  I  and  the  com- 
missionnaire  had  been  all  that  time  locked  in.  After  church 
the  sexton  told  us  that  there  would  be  a  baptismal  service 
there  in  an  hour,  —  eleven  babies  to  be  baptized.  That 
was  something  not  to  be  lost ;  so  I  drove  away  for  half  an 
hour,  went  to  a  farm-house  and  begged  milk,  and  then, 
after  I  had  got  my  inch,  asked  for  my  habitual  ell,  —  that  is, 
to  see  the  house.  The  woman  was,  like  all  housekeepers, 
full  of  apologies,  but  showed  me  her  five  rooms  with  good- 
will, —  five  in  a  row,  all  opening  together,  the  kitchen  in 
the  middle,  and  the  front  door  in  the  back  yard  by  the  hen- 
coop and  water-barrel !  The  kitchen  was  like  the  Nor- 
wegian farm-house  kitchens,  —  a  bare  shed-like  place,  with 
a  table,  and  wall-shelves,  and  a  great  stone  platform  with 
a  funnel  roof  overhead ;  sunken  hollows  to  make  the  fire 
in;  no  oven,  no  lids,  no  arrangement  for  doing  anything 
except  boiling  or  frying.  A  huge  kettle  of  boiling  por- 
ridge was  standing  over  a  few  blazing  sticks.  Havre- 
mels  grod — which  is  Norwegian,  and  Danish  also,  for 
oatmeal  pudding  —  is  half  their  living.  All  the  bread  they 
have  they  buy  at  the  baker's. 

The  other  rooms  were  clean.  Every  one  had  in  it  a 
two-storied  bed  curtained  with  calico,  neat  corner  cup- 
boards, and  bureaus.  There  were  prints  on  the  wall,  and 
a  splendid  brass  coffee-pot  and  urn  under  pink  mosquito 
netting.  But  the  woman  herself  had  no  stockings  on  her 
feet,  and  her  wooden  shoes  stood  just  outside  the  door. 

When  we  reached  the  church  again,  the  babies  were  all 
there.  A  wail  as  of  bleating  lambs  reached  us  at  the  very 
door.  A  strange  custom  in  Denmark  explained  this  bleating : 
the  poor  babies  were  in  the  hands  of  godmothers,  and  not 
their  own  mothers.  The  mothers  do  not  go  with  their  babies 
to  the  christening ;  the  fathers,  godfathers,  and  godmothers 
go,  —  two  godmothers  and  one  godfather  to  each  babj*. 
The  women  and  the  babies  sat  together,  and  rocked  and 
trotted  and  shook  and  dandled  and  screamed,  in  a  per- 
fect Babel  of  motion  and  sound.  Seven  out  of  those  eleven 
babies  were  crying  at  the  top  of  their  lungs.  The  twenty- 
two  godmothers  looked  as  if  the}*  would  go  crazy.  Never, 
no,  never,  did  I  see  or  hoar  such  a  scene  !  The  twenty-two 
fathers  and  godfathers  sat  together  on  the  other  side  of  the 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  341 

aisle,  stolid  and  unconcerned.  I  tried,  to  read  in  their  faces 
which  men  owned  the  babies,  but  I  could  not.  They  all 
looked  alike  indifferent  to  the  racket.  Presently  the  sex- 
ton marshalled  the  women  with  their  babies  in  a  row 
outside  the  outer  railing.  He  had  in  his  hand  a  paper 
with  the  list  of  the  poor  little  things'  names  on  it,  which  he 
took  round,  and  called  the  roll,  apparently  so  as  to  make 
sure  all  was  right.  Then  the  minister  came  in,  and  went 
the  round,  saying  something  over  each  baby  and  making 
the  sign  of  the  cross  on  its  head  and  breast.  I  thought  he 
was  through  when  he  had  once  been  round  doing  this  ;  but 
no,  —  he  had  to  begin  back  again  at  the  first  baby  and 
sprinkle  them.  Oh,  how  the  poor  little  things  did  scream  ! 
I  think  all  eleven  were  crying  by  this  time,  and  I  could  n't 
stand  it ;  so  at  the  third  baby  I  signed  to  my  commissionnaire 
that  we  would  go,  and  we  slipped  out  as  quietly  as  we  could. 
"  Will  there  be  much  more  of  the  service?  "  I  asked  him. 
"  Oh,  yes,"  he  said.  "  He  will  preach  now  to  the  fathers 
and  to  the  godfathers  and  godmothers."  I  doubt  if  the 
godmothers  knew  one  word  he  said.  The  babies  all  wore 
little  round  woollen  hoods,  most  of  them  bright  blue,  with 
three  white  buttons  in  a  row  on  the  back.  Their  dresses 
were  white,  but  short ;  and  each  baby  had  a  long  white 
apron  on  to  make  a  show  with  in  front.  This  was  as  long 
as  a  handsome  infant's  robe  would  be  made  anywhere ; 
but  it  was  undisguisedly  an  apron,  open  all  the  way  be- 
hind, and  in  the  case  of  these  poor  little  screaming  crea- 
tures flying  in  all  directions  at  ever}'  kick  and  writhing 
struggle.  I  was  glad  enough  to  escape  the  church ;  but 
twenty-two  women  must  have  come  out  gladder  still  a  little 
later.  On  the  way  home  I  passed  a  windmill  which  I 
could  have  stayed  a  day  to  paint  if  I  had  been  an  artist. 
It  was  six-sided  ;  the  sails  were  on  red  beams  ;  a  red  bal- 
cony all  round  it,  with  red  beams  sloping  down  as  sup- 
ports, resting  on  the  lower  story ;  the  first  story  was  on 
piles,  and  the  spaces  between  filled  up  solid  with  sticks  of 
wood,  —  the  place  where  they  kept  their  winter  fuel.  Next 
to  this  came  a  narrow  belt  painted  light  yellow ;  then  a 
black  belt,  with  windows  in  it  rimmed  with  white  ;  then 
the  red  balcony  ;  then  a  drab  or  gray  space,  —  this  made 
of  plain  boards ;  then  the  rest  to  the  top  shingled  like  a 
roof;  in  this  part  one  window,  with  red  rims  in  each  side. 


342        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

A  long,  low  warehouse  of  light  yellow  stuccoed  walls, 
lined  off  with  dark  brown,  joined  the  mill  by  a  covered 
way ;  and  the  mill-owner's  house  was  close  on  the  other 
side,  also  with  light  yellow  stuccoed  walls  and  a  red-tiled 
roof,  and  hedges  and  vines  and  an  orchard  in  front.  Paint 
this,  somebody ;  do ! 

This  is  the  tale  of  the  first  two  days  in  Copenhagen.  In 
nyy  next  I  will  tell  you  about  the  museums  if  I  come  out 
of  them  alive  ;  it  sounds  as  if  nobody  could.  One  ought 
to  be  here  at  least  two  weeks  to  really  study  the  superb 
collections  of  one  sort  and  another. 

I  will  close  this  first  section  of  my  notions  of  Denmark 
with  a  brief  tribute  to  the  Danish  flea.  I  considered  my- 
self proof  against  fleas.  I  had  wintered  them  in  Rome, 
had  lived  familiarly  with  them  in  Norway,  and  my  con- 
tempt for  them  was  in  direct  proportion  to  my  familiarit}'. 
I  defied  them  by  day,  and  ignored  them  by  night.  But 
the  Danish  flea  is  as  David  to  Saul !  He  is  a  cross  be- 
tween a  bedbug  and  a  wasp.  He  is  the  original  of  the 
famous  idea  of  the  Dragon,  symbolized  in  all  the  worships 
of  the  world.  I  bow  before  him  in  terror,  and  trust  most 
devoutly  he  never  leaves  the  shores  of  Denmark. 

Good-by.     Bless  you  all ! 


II. 

DEAR  PEOPLE,  —  I  promised  to  tell  you  about  the 
museums  in  Copenhagen.  It  was  a  very  rash  promise ; 
and  there  was  a  rash  promise  which  I  made  to  myself 
back  of  that,  —  that  is,  to  see  the  Copenhagen  museums. 
]  had  looked  forward  to  them  as  the  chief  interest  of  our 
visit ;  they  are  said  to  be  among  the  finest  in  the  world,  in 
some  respects  unequalled.  One  would  suppose  that  the 
Dane's  first  desire  and  impulse  would  be  to  make  it  eas}-  for 
strangers  to  see  these  unrivalled  collections,  the  pride  of 
his  capital ;  on  the  contrary,  he  has  done,  it  would  seem, 
all  that  lay  in  his  power  to  make  it  quite  out  of  the  power 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  343 

of  travellers  to  do  anything  like  justice  to  them.  To  really 
see  the  three  great  museums  of  Copenhagen  —  the  Ethno- 
graphic, the  Museum  of  Northern  Antiquities,  and  the 
Rosenborg  Castle  collection — one  would  need  to  stav  in 
Copenhagen  at  least  two  weeks,  and  even  then  he  would 
have  had  but  fourteen  hours  for  each  museum. 

The  Ethnographic  is  open  only  on  Monday,  Wednesday, 
Friday,  and  Sunday,  and  open  only  two  hours  at  a 
time,  —  on  Sunda}-,  from  twelve  to  two  ;  on  the  week  days, 
from  ten  to  twelve.  There  are  in  this  museum  over  thirty 
large  rooms,  and  nearly  six  hundred  cases  of  labelled  and 
numbered  objects.  All  the  rooms  are  of  great  interest ;  one 
could  easily  spend  the  whole  two  hours  of  the  allotted  time 
in  an}'  one  of  them.  To  attempt  even  to  walk  through  the 
whole  museum  in  the  two  hours  is  undertaking  too  much. 

The  Museum  of  Northern  Antiquities  is  open  on  Thurs- 
days, Saturdays,  and  Sundays,  from  twelve  to  two ;  on 
Tuesda3*s,  from  five  to  seven.  On  Sundays,  you  see,  it  is 
at  the  same  hour  as  the  Ethnographic !  In  this  museum 
are  eighteen  large  rooms  filled  with  objects  of  the  greatest 
interest,  from  the  old  "dust  heaps"  of  the  lake  dwellers 
down  to  Tycho  Brahe's  watch. 

The  Rosenborg  Castle  Collection  is  probably,  to  travel- 
lers in  general,  the  most  interesting  of  all  the  coUections. 
It  is  called  a  "Chronological  Collection  of  the  Kings  of 
Denmark," — which,  being  interpreted,  means  that  it  is  a 
collection  of  dresses,  weapons,  ornaments,  etc.,  the  greater 
proportion  of  which  have  belonged  to  Danish  kings, 
from  the  old  days  of  Christian  IV.  (1448)  down  to  the 
present  time.  These  are  most  admirably  arranged  in 
chronological  order,  so  that  you  see  in  each  room  or  divi- 
sion a  graphic  picture  of  the  royal  life  and  luxury  of  that 
period.  The  whole  of  the  great  Rosenborg  Castle,  three 
floors,  is  devoted  to  this  collection.  How  many  rooms 
there  are,  I  do  not  know,  —  certainty  twenty  ;  and  there  is 
not  one  of  them  in  which  I  would  not  like  to  spend  a  half- 
day.  Now,  how  do  you  think  the  Danish  Government 
(for  this  is  a  national  property)  arranges  for  the  exhibition 
of  this  collection  ?  You  may  see  it,  on  any  day,  b}*  apply- 
ing for  a  ticket  the  day  beforehand ;  the  hour  at  which 
you  can  be  admitted  will  be  marked  on  }'our  ticket ;  you 
will  arrive,  with  perhaps  twelve  others  (that  being  the 


344        NORWAY,   DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

outside  number  for  whom  tickets  are  issued  for  any  one 
hour)  ;  you  will  be  walked  through  that  whole  museum  in 
one  hour,  by  one  of  the  Government  Inspectors  of  the 
museum  ;  he  will  give  you  a  rapid  enumeration  of  the 
chief  objects  of  interest  as  you  pass  ;  and  you  will  have  no 
clearer  idea  of  any  one  thing  than  if  you  had  been  fired 
through  the  rooms  out  of  a  cannon. 

Have  I  spoken  unjustly  when  I  say  that  the  Dane  ap- 
pears to  have  done  all  in  his  power  to  shut  up  from  the 
general  public  of  travellers  these  choicest  collections  of 
his  country? 

Now  I  will  tell  you  all  I  know  of  the  Rosenberg  Collec- 
tion, and  how  it  happens  that  I  know  anything ;  and  my 
history  begins  like  so  many  of  the  old  Danish  histories, 
with  a  fight. 

In  the  outset  I  paid  for  a  full  ticket,  as  there  happened 
to  be  no  one  else  who  had  applied  to  go  in  that  after- 
noon. Later,  two  Englishmen  wishing  to  see  the  museum, 
their  commissionnaire  came  to  know  if  I  would  not  like  to 
have  them  go  at  the  same  time,  which  would  reduce  the 
price  of  the  tickets  by  two  thirds.  This  I  declined  to  do, 
preferring  to  have  the  entire  time  of  the  Museum  Inspector 
for  my  own  benefit  in  way  of  explanations,  etc.  With  the 
guide  all  to  myself,  I  thought  I  should  be  able  far  better 
to  understand  and  study  the  museum. 

Equipped  with  my  note-book  and  pen  and  catalogue, 
and  with  the  faithful  Harriet  b}~  my  side,  I  entered,  cheer- 
ful, confident,  and  full  of  enthusiasm,  especially  about 
any  and  all  relics  of  the  famous  old  Christian  IV.,  whose 
impress  on  his  city  and  country  is  so  noticeable  to  this 
day. 

The  first  scene  of  ray  drama  opens  with  the  arrival  of 
the  Inspector  whose  duty  it  was  on  that  occasion  to  exhibit 
the  museum.  There  are  three  of  these  Inspectors,  who 
take  turns  in  the  exhibition.  He  was  a  singularly  hand- 
some man,  —  a  keen  blue  eye ;  hair  about  white,  whiter 
than  it  should  have  been  by  age,  for  he  could  not  have 
been  more  than  fifty  or  fifty -five ;  a  finely  cut  face,  with 
great  mobility,  almost  a  passionateuess  of  vivacity  in  its 
expression  ;  a  tall  and  graceful  figure  :  his  whole  look  and 
bearing  gave  me  a  great  and  sudden  pleasure  as  he  ap- 
proached. And  when  he  began  to  speak  in  English,  my 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  345 

delight  was  kindled  anew ;  I  warmed  at  once  in  anticipa- 
tion of  my  afternoon.  Mistaken  dream  ! 

I  said  to  him,  "I  am  very  sorry,  indeed,  that  we  have 
so  short  a  time  in  which  to  see  these  beautiful  and  inter- 
esting collections.  Two  hours  is  nothing." 

"•  Oh,  I  shall  explain  to  you  everything,"  he  said  hastily, 
and  proceeded  to  throw  opeu  the  doors  of  mysterious 
wall-closets  in  the  room  which  was  called  the  Presence 
Chamber  of  Christian  IV. 

The  walls  of  this  room  are  of  solid  oak,  divided  off  into 
panels  by  beautiful  carved  pillars,  with  paintings  between. 
The  ceiling  is  like  the  walls,  and  the  floor  is  of  marble. 
In  the  south  wall  are  four  closets  filled  with  more  rare 
and  exquisite  things  than  I  could  describe  in  a  hundred 
pages  ;  all  these  in  one  side  of  the  first  room  !  The  first 
thing  which  my  noble  Dane  pointed  out  was  the  famous 
old  Oldenborg  horn,  of  which  I  had  before  read,  and  wished 
much  to  see,  —  an  old  drinking-horn  of  silver,  solid  chased, 
from  brim  to  tip.  The  legend  is  that  it  was  given  to 
Count  Otto  of  Oldenborg  by  a  mountain  nymph  in  a 
forest  one  day  in  the  year  909. 

As  he  pointed  out  this  horn,  I  opened  my  catalogue  to 
find  the  place  where  it  was  mentioned  there,  that  I  might 
make  on  the  margin  some  notes  of  points  which  I  wished 
to  recollect.  I  think  1  might  have  been  looking  for  this 
perhaps  half  of  a  minute,  possibly  one  whole  minute,  when 
thundering  from  the  mouth  of  my  splendid  Dane  came, 
"  Do  you  prefer  that  you  read  it  in  the  catalogue  than  that 
I  tell  you?" 

I  am  not  sure,  but  m}-  impression  is  that  I  actually 
jumped  at  his  tone.  I  know  I  was  frightened  enough  to 
do  so.  I  then  explained  to  him  that  I  was  not  looking  for 
it  in  the  catalogue  to  read  then  and  there,  only  to  asso- 
ciate what  I  saw  with  its  place  and  with  the  illustrations 
in  the  catalogue,  and  to  make  notes  for  future  use.  He 
hardly  heard  a  word  I  said.  Putting  out  his  hand  and 
waving  my  poor  catalogue  away,  he  said,  "It  is  all  there. 
You  shall  find  everything  there,  as  I  tell  you  ;  will  you 
listen  ?  " 

Quite  cowed,  I  tried  to  listen  ;  but  I  found  that  unless  I 
carried  out  my  plan  of  following  his  explanations  by  the 
list  in  the  catalogue,  and  made  little  marginal  notes,  I 


346        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY. 

should  remember  nothing ;  moreover,  that  it  was  impossible 
to  look  at  half  the  things,  as  he  rapidly  enumerated  them. 
I  opened  my  catalogue  again,  and  began  to  note  some  of 
the  more  interesting  things.  The  very  sight  of  the  cata- 
logue open  in  my  hands  seemed  to  act  upon  him  like  a  scarlet 
flag  on  a  bull.  Instantly  he  burst  out  upon  me  again  ;  and 
when  I  attempted  to  explain,  he  interrupted  me,  — did  not 
give  me  time  to  finish  one  sentence,  —  did  not  apparently 
comprehend  what  I  meant,  or  what  it  was  that  I  wished 
to  do,  except  that  -it  reflected  in  some  way  on  him  as  a 
guide  and  explainer.  In  vain  I  tried  to  stem  the  tide  of 
his  angry  words  ;  and  the  angrier  he  got,  the  less  intelli- 
gible became  his  English. 

"Perhaps  you  take  me  for  a  servant  in  this  museum," 
he  said.  "Perhaps  my  name  is  as  good  in  my  country  as 
yours  is  in  your  own  !  " 

"Oh,  do  —  do  listen  to  me  one  minute,"  I  said.  "If 
yon  will  only  hear  me,  I  think  I  can  make  you  understand. 
I  do  implore  you  not  to  be  so  angry." 

"  I  am  not  angry.  I  have  listen  to  you  every  time,  — 
too  man}-  time.  I  have  not  time  to  listen  any  more ! " 

This  he  said  so  angrily  that  I  felt  the  tears  coming  into 
my  eyes.  I  was  in  despair.  I  turned  to  Harriet  and  said, 
"  Very  well,  Harriet,  we  will  go." 

"  You  shall  not  go  !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  Twenty  }Tears  I 
have  shown  this  museum,  and  never  yet  was  any  one  before 
dissatisfied  with  what  I  tell  them.  I  have  nryself  written 
this  catalogue  you  carry,"  he  cried,  tapping  my  poor  book 
with  his  fingers.  "  Now  I  will  nothing  say,  and  you 
can  ask  if  3'ou  wish  I  should  explain  an3Tthing."  And 
thereupon  he  folded  his  arms,  and  stepped  back,  the  very 
picture  of  a  splendid  man  in  a  sulk.  Could  anything  be 
imagined  droller,  more  unnecessary  ?  I  hesitated  what  to 
do.  If  I  had  not  had  a  very  strong  desire  to  see  the 
museum,  I  would  have  gone  away,  for  he  had  really  been 
almost  unpardonably  rude  ;  yet  I  sympathized  fully  in  his 
hot  and  hasty  temper.  I  saw  clearly  wherein  his  mistake 
lay,  and  that  on  his  theory  of  the  situation  he  was  right 
and  I  was  wrong ;  and  I  thought  perhaps  if  he  watched 
me  for  a  few  minutes  quietl}'  he  would  see  that  I  was 
very  much  in  earnest  in  studying  the  collection,  and  that 
nothing  had  been  further  from  my  mind  than  any  distrust 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  347 

of  his  knowledge.  So  I  gulped  down  my  wounded  feel- 
ings, and  went  on  looking  silently  at  the  eases  and  making 
ray  notes.  Presently  he  began  to  cool  down,  to  see 
his  mistake,  and  before  we  had  gone  through  the  second 
room  was  telling  me  courteously  about  everything,  wait- 
ing while  I  made  my  notes,  and  pointing  out  objects  of 
especial  interest.  In  less  than  half  an  hour  he  had  ceased 
to  be  hostile,  and  before  the  end  of  the  hour  he  had  become 
friendly,  and  more.  —  seized  both  my  hands  in  his,  ex- 
claiming, "  We  shall  be  good  friends,  — good  !  "  He  was 
as  vivacious,  imperious,  and  overwhelming  in  his  friendli- 
ness as  in  his  anger.  "You  must  come  again  to  Rosen- 
borg  ;  you  must  see  it  all.  I  will  myself  show  you  every 
room.  No  matter  who  sends  to  come  in,  they  shall  not  be 
admitted.  I  go  alone  with  you." 

In  vain  I  explained  to  him  that  I  had  only  one  more 
dajr  in  Copenhagen,  and  that  I  must  spend  that  in  going 
to  Elsinore. 

"No,  you  are  not  to  go  to  Elsinore'.  It  is  not  nec- 
essary. You  shall  not  leave  Copenhagen  without  see- 
ing Rosenberg.  Promise  me  that  you  will  come  again 
to  Rosenborg.  Promise  !  Take  an}*  hour  3~ou  please,  and  I 
will  come.  You  shall  have  four  —  five  hours.  Promise  ! 
Promise ! "  And  he  seized  my  hand  in  both  of  his,  arid 
held  it,  repeating,  "  Promise  me  !  Promise!  Oh,  we  shall 
be  very  good  friends, — veiy  good." 

"Ah,"  I  said,  "I  knew,  if  you  only  understood,  you. 
would  be  friendly ;  but  I  really  cannot  come  again." 

He  pulled  out  his  watch,  made  a  gesture  of  despair.  "  I 
have  to  leave  town  in  one  little  half-hour ;  and  there  are 
yet  seventeen  rooms  you  have  not  seen.  You  shall  not 
leave  Copenhagen  till  you  have  seen.  Do  you  promise?" 

I  believe  if  I  had  not  promised  I  should  be  still  stand- 
ing in  the  halls  of  the  Rosenborg.  When  I  finally  said, 
"  Yes,  I  promise,"  he  wrung  my  hand  again,  and  said,  — 

"  Now  we  are  good  friends,  we  shall  be  all  good  friends. 
I  will  show  to  you  all  Rosenberg.  Do  you  promise?" 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "I  promise,"  and  drove  away,  leaving 
him  standing  on  the  sidewalk,  his  steel  blue  eyes  flashing 
with  determination  and  fire,  and  a  smile  on  his  face  which 
I  shall  not  forget.  Never  before  did  I  see  such  passionate, 
fierce  fulness  of  life  in  a  man  whose  hair  was  white. 


348        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY 

I  promised,  but  I  did  not  go.  From  the  Rosenborg  I 
drove  to  the  Museum  of  Northern  Antiquities,  —  from 
five  to  seven  of  that  day  being  my  only  chance  of  seeing 
it  at  all.  By  the  time  I  had  spent  two  hours  in  the  hur- 
ried attempt  to  see  the  most  interesting  things  in  this 
second  collection,  my  brain  was  in  a  state  of  chaos,  and 
I  went  back  to  my  hotel  with  a  sense  of  loathing  of  mu- 
seums, only  to  be  compared  to  the  feeling  one  would  have 
about  dinners  if  he  had  eaten  ten  hearty  ones  in  one  day. 
'One  does  not  sleep  off  such  an  indigestion  in  one  night. 
The  next  morning,  nothing  save  actual  terror  could  have 
driven  me  into  a  museum ;  and  as  my  noble  Dane  was 
not  present  to  cow  me  into  obedience,  I  had  energy 
enough  to  write  him  a  note  of  farewell  and  regret.  The 
regret  was  indeed  heartfelt,  not  so  much  for  the  museum 
as  for  him.  I  would  have  liked  to  see  those  blue  eyes 
flash  out  from  under  the  gray  eyebrows  once  more.  I 
too  felt  that  we  would  be  "good  friends,  —  good." 

Now  I  will  try  to  tell  you  a  little  of  the  little  I  remember  of 
the  Rosenborg.  I  only  got  as  far  as  Frederick  IV.'s  time, 
1730.  Many  of  the  most  beautiful  things  in  the  museum 
I  did  not  see,  and  of  many  that  I  did  see  I  recollect  noth- 
ing, especially  of  all  which  I  looked  at  while  I  was  in 
disgrace  with  the  guide ;  I  might  as  well  not  have  seen 
them  at  all. 

One  little  unpretending  thing  interested  me  greatly :  it 
was  a  plain  gold  ring,  with  a  small  uncut  sapphire  in  it ; 
round  the  circle  is  engraved,  "  Ave  Maria  gr.  [gratio- 
sissima]."  It  was  given  by  King  Christian  to  his  wife, 
Elizabeth,  on  their  wedding-day,  Aug.  12,  1515,  —  three 
hundred  years  and  two  weeks  before  the  day  I  saw  it.  It 
lay  near  the  great  Oldenborg  drinking-horn,  and  few  peo- 
ple would  care  much  for  it  by  the  side  of  the  other,  I  sup- 
pose. Then  there  was  another  bridal  ornament  of  a  dead 
queen, — it  had  belonged  to  Dorothea,  wife  of  Christian 
III.,  —  a  gold  plate,  four  or  five  inches  square,  with  an 
eagle  in  the  centre,  bearing  an  escutcheon  with  the  date 
1557 :  on  the  eagle's  breast  a  large  uncut  sapphire  ;  over 
the  eagle,  an  emerald  and  a  sapphire ;  and  under  it,  a  sap- 
phire and  an  amethyst,  all  very  large.  There  are  also 
pearls  set  here  and  there  in  the  plate.  This  was  given  to 
the  city  of  Copenhagen  by  the  queen,  to  be  worn  by  the 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  349 

daughters  of  the  richest  and  most  honored  of  the  Danish 
people  on  their  wedding-day.  It  was  for  many  generations 
kept  and  used  in  this  way,  but  finally  the  custom  fell  into 
disuse  ;  and  now  the  Copenhagen  brides  think  no  more  of 
Queen  Dorothea  at  their  weddings,  than  of  any  other  old 
gone-by  queen,  —  which  is  a  pity,  it  seems  tome,  for  it 
surely  was  a  lovely  thought  of  hers  to  ally  her  memory  to 
the  bridals  of  young  maidens  in  her  land  for  all  time. 

There  was  in  this  room,  also,  Frederick  II. 's  Order  of 
the  Elephant,  the  oldest  in  existence,  and  held  in  great 
veneration  by  people  who  esteem  ornaments  of  that  sort. 
It  is  much  less  beautiful  than  some  other  orders  of  less 
distinction.  The  elephant  is  a  clumsy  beast,  carve  him 
never  so  finely,  enamel  him  all  you  wili,  and  call  him  what 
you  like. 

There  is  also  here  the  Order  of  the  Garter,  of  that  same 
king — twenty-six  enamelled  red  roses  on  blue  shields  held 
together  by  twists  of  gold  cord ;  diamonds  and  pearls 
make  it  splendid,  and  that  bit  of  gospel  truth  "Evil  to 
him  that  evil  thinks,"  is  written  on  it  in  rubies,  as  it 
deserves  to  be  written  everywhere. 

This  Frederick  must  have  been  a  gay  fellow ;  for  here 
stands  a  glass  goblet,  five  inches  in  diameter,  and  fifteen 
high,  out  of  which  he  and  his  set  of  boon  companions  fell 
to  drinking  one  day  on  wagers  to  see  who  could  drink  the 
most,  and  scratched  their  names  on  the  glass  as  they 
drank,  each  man  his  mark  and  record,  little  thinking  that 
the  glass  would  outlive  them  three  centuries  and  more,  as 
it  has  ;  and  is  likel}-  now,  unless  Rosenborg  burns  down, 
to  last  the  world  out. 

The  thing  I  would  rather  own,  of  all  this  Frederick's 
possessions,  would  be  one  —  I  would  be  quite  content 
with  one  —  of  the  plates  which  Germany  sent  to  him  as  a 
present.  They  are  red  in  the  middle,  with  gold  escutch- 
eons enamelled  on  them ;  the  borders  are  of  plain  clear 
amber,  rimmed  with  silver, — one  big  circle  of  amber !  The 
piece  from  which  it  was  cut  was  big  enough  to  have  made 
the  whole  plate,  if  they  had  chosen,  but  it  was  more  beau- 
tiful to  set  it  simply  as  a  rim.  Nothing  could  be  dreamed 
of  more  beautiful  in  the  way  of  a  plate  than  this. 

I  told  you  in  my  last  letter  what  a  stamp  Christian  IV. 
had  left  on  the  capital  of  his  kingdom.  I  fancy,  without 


350        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

knowing  anything  about  it,  that  he  must  have  been  one  of 
the  greatest  kings  Denmark  ever  had  ;  at  any  rate,  he  built 
well,  planned  well  for  poor  people,  worked  with  a  free 
hand  for  art  and  science,  fought  like  a  tiger,  and  loved  — 
well,  he  loved  like  a  king,  I  suppose  ;  for  he  had  concubines 
from  every  country  in  Europe,  and  no  end  of  illegitimate 
princes  and  princesses  whom  he  brought  up,  maintained, 
and  educated  in  the  most  royal  fashion.  He  lived  many 
years  in  this  Rosenberg ;  and  when  he  found  he  must  die, 
was  brought  back  here,  and  died  in  a  little  room  we  should 
think  small  to-day  for  a  man  to  lie  mortally  ill  in  ;  but  he 
lived  only  one  week  after  he  was  brought  back,  and  it  was 
in  winter- time,  so  the  open  fireplace  ventilated  the  room. 

The  upper  half  of  the  walls  is  covered  with  dark  green 
moire  silk,  with  gold  flowers  on  it ;  the  lower  half  is  cov- 
ered with  paintings,  man}*  portraits  among  them  ;  and  in 
places  of  honor  among  the  portraits,  the  king's  favorite 
dogs,  Wild-brat  and  Tyrk. 

Here  are  his  silver  compasses  and  his  ship  hand-lantern  ; 
the  silver  scales  in  which  he  weighed  out  his  gold  and  sil- 
ver ;  a  little  hand  printing-press,  dusty  and  worn,  with  the 
brass  stamp  with  his  monogram  on  it,  —  his  occupation  in 
rainy  days  of  leisure.  Here,  also,  are  the  tokens  of  his 
idle  moments,  —  a  silver  goblet  made  out  of  money  won  by 
him  from  four  courtiers,  who  had  all  betted  with  him,  on  one 
6th  of  February,  which  would  be  first  drunk  before  Easter. 
These  were  the  things  that  1  cared  most  for,  —  more  than 
for  the  splendors,  of  which  there  were  closets  full,  glass 
cases  full,  tables  full :  goblets  of  lapis  lazuli,  jasper,  agate, 
and  crystal,  gold  and  silver ;  lamps  of  crystal ;  cabinets 
of  ebony ;  orders  and  rings  and  bracelets  and  seals 
and  note-books  and  clocks  and  weapons,  all  of  the  cost- 
liest and  most  beautiful  workmanship ;  rubies  and  dia- 
monds and  pearls,  set  and  sewed  wherever  they  could 
be  ;  a  medicine  spoon,  with  gold  for  its  handle  and  a  hol- 
lowed sapphire  for  its  bowl,  for  instance,  —  the  sapphire 
nearly  one  inch  across.  One  might  swallow  even  allopathic 
medicine  out  of  such  a  spoon  as  that:  and  I  dare  say 
that  it  was  when  she  wras  very  ill,  and  had  a  lot  of  nasty 
doses  to  take,  that  Madame  Kirstin  —  one  of  the  left- 
handed  wives  —  got  from  the  sympathizing  king  this  dainty 
little  gift.  "C"  and  "K"  are  wrought  into  a  mono- 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  351 

gram  on  the  handle,  which  is  three  inches  long,  of  em- 
bossed gold.  Another  sapphire,  clear  as  a  drop  of  ocean 
water  with  sunlight  piercing  it,  and  one  inch  square,  is 
in  the  same  case  with  the  medicine  spoon.  A  chalice, 
with  wafer-box,  paten,  and  cup,  all  of  the  finest  gold,  en- 
graved, enamelled,  and  set  thick  with  precious  stones,  has 
a  gold  death's-head  and  cross-bones  on  the  stem  of  the 
chalice ;  and  the  eyes  of  the  death's-head  are  two  great 
rose  diamonds,  which  gleam  out  frightfully.  Another 
gold  chalice  has  on  its  under  side  a  twisted  network  of 
Arabesque,  with  sixty-six  enamelled  rosettes,  all  open- 
work on  it. 

In  the  room  called  Christian's  workroom  is  a  set  of 
caparisons  for  a  horse,  —  saddle,  saddle-cloth,  housing,  and 
holsters,  all  of  black  velvet,  sewn  thick,  even  solid,  with 
pearls  and  gold,  rubies,  sapphires,  and  rose  diamonds. 
The  sight  of  them  flashing  in  sunlight  on  a  horse's  back 
must  have  been  dazzling.  These  were  a  wedding  present 
from  King  Christian  to  his  son. 

In  this  room  also  are  several  suits  of  Christian's  clothes, 
— jerkin,  trousers,  and  mantle,  in  the  fashion  of  that  day, 
dashing  enough,  even  when  made  of  common  stuffs ;  but 
these  are  of  cloth  of  gold,  silver  moire,  black  Brabant 
lace,  trimmed  in  the  most  lavish  way  with  gold  and  silver 
laces,  and  embroidered  with  pearls  and  gold.  There  is  a 
suit  of  dirty  and  blood-stained  linen  hanging  in  one  of  the 
locked  cabinets  which  does  him  more  credit  than  these. 
It  is  the  suit  he  wore  at  the  great  naval  battle  where  he 
lost  his  eye.  A  shell  exploding  on  the  deck,  a  fragment 
of  it  flew  into  his  face  and  instantly  destroyed  his  right  eye. 
His  men  thought  all  was  lost ;  but  he,  seizing  his  handker- 
chief, clapped  it  into  the  bleeding  socket,  and  fought  on. 
One  reads  of  such  heroic  deeds  as  this  with  only  a  vague 
thrill  of  wonder  and  admiration ;  but  to  see  and  touch  the 
very  garments  the  hero  wore  is  another  thing.  This  old 
blood-stained  velvet  jerkin  Is  worth  more  to  the  Danish 
peopb  than  all  the  scores  of  bejewelled  robes  in  the  Rosen- 
berg ;  and  I  think  there  are  literally  scores  of  them. 

iXcxt  to  Christian  IV.  came  Frederick  III.  ;  and  in 
his  roign  the  rococo  style  ruled  everything.  Three 
rooms  in  the  Rosenborg  are  devoted  to  the  relics  of  this 
king's  reign  ;  and  a  great  deal  of  hideous  magnificence  they 


352        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

hold,  it  must  be  confessed,  —  cabinets  and  tables  and 
candlesticks  and  ceilings  and  walls,  which  are  as  jar- 
ring to  the  eye  as  the  Chinese  gong  is  to  the  ear,  and 
appear  to  be  just  about  as  civilized.  But  the  rococo  had 
not  yet  spoiled  everything.  The  jewelled  cups  and  boxes 
and  spoons  and  miniatures  are  as  beautiful  as  ever ;  a  set 
of  glass  spoons  with  handles  of  gold  and  of  agate  and  of 
crystal ;  the  gold  knives  and  forks  that  Frederick  III.  and 
his  queen  used  to  travel  with.  In  those  clays  when  you 
were  asked  to  tea  you  carried  your  own  implements  ;  ivory 
cups,  gold  goblets,  and  goblets  of  crystal,  a  goblet  made 
out  of  one  solid  topaz,  and  a  great  tankard  made  of  amber, — 
these  are  a  few  of  the  little  necessaries  of  every-day  life  to 
Frederick's  court.  His  motto  was  ' '  Dominus  providebit ; " 
it  is  on  half  of  his  splendid  possessions,  —  on  his  mosaic 
tables  and  his  jewelled  canes  and  pomade  boxes ;  every- 
where it  looms  up,  in  unwitting  but  delicious  satire  on 
the  habit  Frederick  had  of  providing  for  himself,  and  most 
lavishly  too,  all  sorts  of  superfluities,  which  the  Lord 
never  would  think  of  providing  for  any  human  being !  — 
such,  for  instance,  as  a  jewel  box  of  silver,  with  fifteen 
splendidly  cut  crystals  let  into  the  sides,  so  that  one  can 
look  through  into  the  box  and  see  on  the  bottom  a  fine  bit 
of  embossed  work,  the  picture  of  the  Judgment  of  Paris. 
Around  these  crystals  sixty-two  large  garnets  are  set,  and 
these  again  are  surrounded  by  wreaths  of  flowers  and 
leaves  in  embossed  work,  set  thick  with  more  diamonds 
than  could  be  counted.  A  very  pretty  thing  in  its  way,  to 
stand  on  a  dressing-table  and  hold  the  kind  of  rings  worn 
at  this  time  by  the  kind  of  persons  who  reigned  in  Den- 
mark !  Another  prett}'  little  thing  he  had,  —  not  so  useful  as 
the  jewel-box,  but  in  far  more  perfect  taste,  —  was  a  crystal 
goblet,  in  shape  of  a  shell,  resting  on  the  back  of  a  bend- 
ing Cupid.  Eight  beautiful  heads '  are  cut  on  the  sides  of 
this  cup,  and  there  is  standing  on  its  curling  base  a  winged 
boy.  Its  translucent  shades  and  shadows  are  beautiful  be- 
yond words.  It  is  said  to  be  the  most  beautiful  specimen 
in  the  world  of  work  in  pure  crystal.  The  topaz  goblet 
and  the  amber  tankard,  however,  would  outrival  it  in  most 
eyes.  I  longed  to  see  the  topaz  cup  held  up  to  the  sun, 
filled  with  pale  wine.  I  believe  you  could  hear  it  shine ! 
The  third  of  the  rooms  devoted  to  Frederick  and  his  reign 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  353 

is  called  the  Marble  Chamber,  and  is  a  superb  103-  place  ; 
floor  and  walls  all  marble.  In  cabinets  in  this  room  are 
some  of  Frederick's  clothes,  —  every-day  clothes,  such 
as  dark  brown  cloth,  ornamented  down  every  seam  with 
gold  and  silver  lace  ;  and  a  dress  of  his  queen's,  the  only 
dress  of  a  woman  which  has  come  down  from  that  age. 
It  is  one  solid  mass  of  embroider}'  in  gold  and  gay  colors 
on  silk,  stiff  as  old  tapestry ;  loops  of  faded  pink  ribbon 
down  the  front,  and  a  long  jabot  of  old  point  lace  all  the 
•way  down  the  front.  There  are  also  a  sword  and  sword- 
belt,  and  a  gun  bearing  the  initials  of  this  lady.  The  gun 
has  a  medallion  of  ivory  let  in  at  the  butt  end,  with  her 
initials,  "8.  A.,"  and  her  motto,  "In  God  is  my  hope." 
There  is  something  uncommonly  droll  in  these  mottoes  of 
faith  in  God's  providing,  inscribed  on  so  many  articles 
of  luxury  by  people  who  must  have  certainly  spent  a  good 
part  of  their  time  in  providing  for  themselves. 

In  the  last  part  of  the  seventeenth  century  things  in 
Denmark  were  more  and  more  stamped  b}~  the  French 
influence.  Christian  V.,  who  succeeded  to  Frederick  III., 
had  spent  some  time  in  the  court  of  Louis  XIV.,  and 
wanted  to  make  his  own  court  as  much  like  it  as  possible. 
So  we  find,  in  the  rooms  devoted  to  Christian  V.'s  reign, 
tapestries  and  cabinets  which  might  all  have  come  from 
France.  One  of  the  saloons  is  hung  with  superb  tapestry, 
all  with  a  red  ground  ;  and  the  tables  and  mirrors  and 
chairs  are  all  gilded  and  carved  in  the  last  degree  of  fan- 
tastic decoration.  This  red  room  used  to  be  Christian's 
dining-room  ;  and  the  plate-warmers  still  stand  before  the 
fireplace,  —  two  feet  high,  round,  solid  silver,  every  inch 
engraved. 

Caskets  of  amber,  of  ivory  ;  drinking-horns,  —  one-third 
horn  and  two-thirds  embossed  silver,  —  bowls  and  globes 
of  wrought  silver,  hunting-cups  of  solid  silver  made  to  fit 
into  deer's  antlers  and  with  coral  knobs  tor  handles ; 
closets  full  of  fowling-pieces,  pistols,  silver-sheathed  hunt- 
ing-knives, falcon  hoods  set  with  real  pearls  and  embroi- 
dered in  gold,  —  orders  of  all  sorts  known  to  Denmark; 
elephants  and  St.  Georges  in  silver  and  crystal  and 
cameo  ;  gold  jugs,  gold  beakers,  bowls  of  green  jade, 
with  twisted  snakes  for  handles  and  dragons'  heads  at 
bottom  ;  goblets  of  solid  crvstal,  of  countless  shapes  and 
23 


354        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY. 

sizes, — one  in  shape  of  a  flying-fish  borne  by  two  dol- 
phins ;  onyx  and  jasper  and  agate  and  porcelain,  made 
into  no  end  of  shapes'  and  uses  ;  —  these  are  a  few  of  the 
things  which  "God  provided"  for  this  Danish  king  and 
queen.  One  of  these  rooms  is  hung  with  tapestries  of 
lilac  silk  and  gold  moire,  embroidered  with  gold  and  silver 
threads  and  colors.  These  were  provided  b}T  Frederick 
himself,  who  brought  them  from  Italy. 

But  you  don't  care  a  fig  who  brought  the  things,  or  when 
they  were  brought ;  and  perhaps  you  don't  care  very  much 
about  the  things  anyhow.  I  dare  say  they  do  not  sound 
half  as  superb  as  they  were  ;  but  I  must  tell  you  of  a  few 
more.  What  do  you  think  of  a  room  with  walls,  ceiling, 
and  a  large  space  in  the  centre  of  the  floor  all  of  plate 
glass,  the  rest  of  the  floor  being  of  exquisite  mosaic  in 
wood  ;  and  of  a  coat  of  crimson  velvet  embroidered  thick 
with  silver  thread,  to  be  worn  with  a  pale  blue  waistcoat, 
also  embroidered  stiff  with  silver  thread  ;  and  of  cups  cut 
out  of  rubies  ;  and  a  great  bowl  of  obsidian  set  with  rubies 
and  garnets ;  and  of  topazes  big  enough  to  cut  heads  on 
in  fine  relief  ?  There  are  hundreds  and  hundreds  more  of 
things  I  have  not  mentioned,  and  hundreds  of  things  I  did 
not  see  even,  in  the  rooms  I  walked  through ;  and  there 
were  seventeen  rooms  more  into  which  I  did  not  even  go. 
If  I  had,  I  should  have  seen  twelve  superb  tapestries,  12 
feet  in  height,  by  10  to  20  feet  broad,  each  giving  a  picture 
of  a  battle,  and  all  strictly  historical ;  the  Royal  Font,  of 
solid  embossed  silver,  inside  which  is  placed  at  every 
christening  another  dish  of  gold ;  one  whole  room  full 
of  the  costliest  and  rarest  porcelain  from  all  parts  of  the 
world,  —  here  is  the  splendid  and  famous  "  Flora  Danica" 
service.  I  saw  at  a  porcelain  shop  a  reproduction  of  this 
service,  every  article  bearing  some  Danish  flower  most 
exquisitely  painted.  A  great  platter  heaped  full  of  wild 
roses  was  as  lovely  as  a  day  in  June.  Here  also  are  the 
Danish  Regalia,  kept  in  a  room  hung  with  Oriental  carpets, 
and  with  a  floor  of  black  and  white  marble.  "In  the 
middle  of  the  floor  a  pyramid  arises  behind  clear  thick 
plate  glass,  from  the  flat  sides  of  which,  covered  with  red 
velvet,  the  rays  of  gold  and  precious  stones  flash  upon  us, 
whilst  the  summit  is  adorned  by  a  magnificent  and  costly 
crown."  This  sentence  is  from  the  catalogue  written  by 


ENCYCLICALS   OF  A    TRAVELLER.  355 

my  friend  the  noble  Dane,  and  is  a  very  favorable  speci- 
men of  his  English.  Bless  him,  how  I  do  wish  I  had  gone 
back  to  that  museum  !  At  this  distance  of  time  it  seems 
incomprehensible  to  me  that  I  did  not.  But  that  day  I 
felt  as  if  one  more  look  at  the  simple  door  of  a  museum 
would  make  a  maniac  of  me.  So  this  is  all  I  can  tell  you 
about  the  famous  Rosenborg.  And  with  the  others  I  will 
not  bore  you  much,  for  I  have  made  this  so  long ;  only  I 
must  tell  you  that  in  the  Ethnographic,  which  is  in  some 
respects,  I  suppose,  the  most  valuable  of  them  all,  having 
five  rooms  full  of  Prehistoric  antiquities  from  the  stone, 
bronze,  and  early  iron  ages  in  every  part  of  the  world,  and 
twenty  or  thirty  rooms  more  full  of  characteristic  ^things,  — 
dresses,  implements,  ornaments,  weapons,  of  the  unculti- 
vated savage  or  semi-savage  races,  also  of  the  Chinese, 
Persians,  Arabians,  Turks,  East  Indians,  etc. ;  —  in  this 
museum  I  found  a  most  important  place  assigned  to  the 
North  American  Indian ;  and  Dr.  Steinhauer.  the  director 
of  the  museum,  a  man  whose  ethnographical  studies  and 
researches  have  made  him  known  to  all  antiquarians  in  the 
world  was  full  of  interest  in  them,  and  appreciation  of 
their  noble  qualities,  of  their  skill  and  taste  in  decoration, 
and  still  more  of  the  important  links  between  them  and  the 
old  civilizations.  Here  were  portraits  of  all  the  most  dis- 
tinguished of  our  Indian  chiefs  ;  a  whole  corridor  filled  with 
glass  cases  full  of  their  robes,  implements,  weapons,  decora- 
tions ;  several  life-size  figures  in  full  war-dress :  and  their 
trappings  were  by  no  means  put  to  shame,  in  point  of  de- 
sign and  color,  by  the  handsomest  trappings  in  Rosen- 
borg ;  in  fact,  they  were  far  more  wonderful,  being  wrought 
by  an  uncivilized  race,  living  in  wildernesses,  with  only 
rude  paints,  porcupine  quills,  and  glass  beads  to  work 
with.  My  eyes  filled  with  tears,  I  confess,  to  find  at  last 
in  little  Denmark  one  spot  in  the  world  where  there  will 
be  kept  a  complete  pictorial  record  of  the  race  of  men  that 
we  have  done  our  best  to  wipe  out  from  the  face  of  the 
earth,  —  where  historical  justice  will  be  done  to  them  in 
the  far  future,  as  a  race  of  splendid  possibilities,  and 
attainments  marvellous,  considering  the  time  in  which 
they  were  made.  Here  was  a  superb  life-size  figure  of  a 
Blackfeet  warrior  on  his  horse  :  the  saddle,  trappings,  etc., 
are  exactl}-  the  same  in  shape  and  style  as  an  old  Arab 


356         NORWAY,   DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

saddle  used  hundreds  of  years  ago.  On  the  warrior's 
breast  is  a  round  disk  of  lines  radiating  from  a  centre,  in  gay 
colors,  of  straw  and  beads,  of  a  device  identical  with  a 
rich  Moorish  ornament;  the  same  device  Dr.  Steinhauer 
pointed  out  to  me  oil  a  medicine-bag  of  the  Blackfeet 
tribe. 

Here  was  a  figure  of  a  chief  of  the  Sacs  and  Foxes,  in 
full  array ;  by  his  side  the  portrait  of  his  father,  with  the 
totem  of  the  tribe  tattooed  on  his  breast.  With  enthusi- 
asm Dr.  Steinhauer  pointed  out  to  me  how  in  one  genera- 
tion the  progress  had  been  so  great  that  on  the  robe  of 
the  son  was  set  in  a  fine  and  skilful  embroideiy  the  same 
totem  which  the  father  had  rudely  tattooed  on  his  breast. 
Here  were  specimens  of  the  handiwork  of  every  tribe,  — 
of  their  dresses,  of  their  weapons ;  those  of  each  tribe 
carefully  assorted  by  themselves.  Dr.  Steinhauer  knew 
more,  I  venture  to  say,  about  the  different  tribes,  their 
race  affinities  and  connections,  than  any  man  in  America 
knows  to-day.  When  I  told  him  a  little  about  the  scorn 
and  hatred  which  are  felt  in  America  towards  the  Indians, 
the  indifference  with  which  their  fate  is  regarded  by 
the  masses  of  the  people,  and  the  cruel  injustice  of  our 
government  towards  them,  he  listened  to  me  with  undis- 
guised astonishment,  and  repeated  again  and  again  and 
again,  "  It  is  inexplicable  ;  I  cannot  understand." 

You  can  imagine  what  a  thrilling  pleasure  all  this  was 
to  me.  But  it  was  marred  by  the  keenest  sense  of  shame 
of  my  country,  that  it  should  have  been  left  for  Denmark 
alone  to  keep  a  place  in  historical  archives  for  a  fair  show- 
ing and  true  appreciation  of  the  "wards  of  the  United 
States  Government." 

I  might  fill  another  letter  with  accounts  of  the  "  Collec- 
tion of  Northern  Antiquities ; "  but  don't  be  frightened  : 
I  won't,  only  to  tell  you  that  it  is  far  the  largest  and  most 
complete  in  Europe.  And  you  may  see  there  a  specimen 
of  everything  that  has  been  made,  wrought,  and  worn 
in  the  way  of  stone,  bronze,  iron,  or  gold  and  silver,  in 
the  north  countries,  from  the  rude  stone  chisel  with  which 
the  prehistoric  man  pried  open  his  oyster  and  clam  shells 
at  picnics  on  the  shore,  and  went  away  and  left  his  shells 
and  "openers"  in  a  careless  pile  behind  him,  so  that  we 
fould  dig  them  all  up  together  some  thousands  of  years 


ENCYCLICALS   OF  A   TRAVELLER.  357 

later,  down  to  the  superb  gold  bracelets  worn  by  the 
strong-armed  women  who  queened  it  in  Norway  ten  cen- 
turies ago.  It  is  a  great  thing  for  us  that  those  old  fellows 
had  such  a  way  of  flinging  their  ornaments  into  lakes  as 
offerings  to  gods,  and  burying  them  by  the  wheelbarrow- 
full  in  graves.  It  was  n't  a  safe  thing  to  do,  even  as  long 
ago  as  that,  however;  for  there  are  traces  in  many  of 
these  burial-mounds  of  their  having  been  opened  and 
robbed  at  some  period  far  back.  In  one  of  the  rooms  of 
this  museum  are  several  huge  oak  coffins,  with  the  mum- 
mied or  half-petrified  bodies  lying  in  them,  just  as  they  were 
buried  sixteen  hundred  years  ago.  The  coffins  were  made 
of  whole  trunks  of  trees,  hollowed  out  so  as  to  make  a 
sort  of  trough  with  a  lid ;  and  in  this  the  body  was  laid, 
with  all  its  usual  garments  on.  There  is  an  indescribable 
and  uncanny  fascination  in  the  sight  of  one  of  these  old 
mummies,  — the  eyeless  sockets,  the  painful  cheekbone,  the 
tight-drawn  forehead ;  they  look  so  human  and  unhuman 
at  once,  so  awfully  dead  and  yet  somehow  so  suggestive 
of  having  been  alive,  that  it  stimulates  a  far  greater  curi- 
osity to  know  what  they  did  and  thought  and  felt,  than  it 
is  possible  to  feel  about  neighbors  to-day.  I  never  see 
half  a  dozen  of  these  mummies  together  without  wishing 
they  would  sit  up  and  take  up  the  thread  of  their  gossip 
where  they  left  it  off,  —  so  different  from  the  feeling  one 
has  about  live  gossips,  and  so  utterly  unreasonable  too ; 
for  gossip  is  gossip  all  the  same,  and  nothing  but  an 
abomination  in  any  age,  whether  that  of  Pharaoh  or 
Ulysses  Grant.  If  I  did  not  feel  a  dreadful  misgiving 
that  you  had  had  enough  museum  alreadj',  and  would  be 
bored  by  more,  I  really  would  like  to  tell  you  about  a  few 
more  of  these  things :  a  necklace,  found  in  a  peat  bog  by 
a  poor  devil  who  had  begged  leave  to  cut  a  bit  of  turf  there 
to  burn,  and  to  be  sure  he  found  eleven  beautiful  gold  things 
of  one  sort  and  another.  The  necklace  is  very  heavy  to 
lift.  I  asked  permission  to  take  it  in  my  hands.  I  laid  it 
around  my  neck,  and  it  would  have  hurt  to  wear  it  ten 
minutes.  It  was  a  great  snake  coil  of  solid  gold,  the  body 
half  as  big  as  my  wrist !  If  Queen  Thyra  wore  it,  she  must 
have  been  a  giantess,  or  else  have  had  a  wadded  "chest 
protector"  underneath  her  necklaces.  She  and  her  hus- 
band, King  Gorm,  were  buried  in  two  enormous  mounds 


358     '    NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

in  Jutland,  some  fourteen  hundred  years  ago.  The  mounds 
were  so  high  that  they  nearly  overtopped  the  little  village 
church ;  and  yet,  at  some  time  or  other,  robbers  had  bur- 
rowed into  them,  and  carried  off  a  lot  of  things,  so  that 
when  the  mounds  were  scientifically  excavated,  few  relics 
were  found.  Stealing  from  that  sort  of  grave  seems  to 
make  the  modern  methods  of  body-snatching  quite  insig- 
nificant. Even  A.  T.  Stewart's  body  would  have  been  safe 
if  it  had  been  in  a  mound  as  high  as  the  church  steeple. 

Now  I  must  tell  you  a  little  more  about  Harriet.  She 
leaves  me  to-morrow,  and  I  shall  grieve  at  parting  with 
the  garrulous  old  soul.  Niobe,  I  call  her  in  mv  own  mind  ; 
for  she  melts  into  tears  at  the  least  emotion.  I  am  afraid 
nobody  has  ever  been  very  good  to  her ;  for  the  smallest 
kindness  touches  her  to  the  quick,  and  she  cannot  refrain 
from  perpetually  breaking  out  into  expressions  of  fondness 
for  me,  and  gratitude,  which  are  sometimes  tiresome.  The 
explanation  of  her  good  English  is  that  her  parents  were 
English,  though  she  was  born  in  Copenhagen,  has  lived 
there  all  her  life,  and  married  a  Dane  when  she  was  quite 
3'oung.  He  was  a  tradesman,  and  the}-  lived  in  compara- 
tive comfort,  though,  as  she  said,  "  we  never  could  lay  up  a 
penny,  because  we  always  sent  the  children  to  the  best 
schools  ;  and  for  ten  children,  ma'am,  it  does  take  a  heap 
of  schooling ! " 

Of  the  ten  children,  six  are  still  living ;  and  Harriet,  at 
sixty- four,  has  thirt3'-six  grandchildren.  When  she  first 
came  to  me  she  looked  ten  years  older  than  she  does  now. 
Good  food,  freedom  from  care,  and  her  enjoyment  of  her 
journey  have  almost  worked  miracles  on  her  face.  Every 
morning  she  has  come  out  looking  better  than  she  did  the 
night  before.  I  see  that  she  must  have  been  a  very  hand- 
some woman  in  her  day,  —  delicate  features,  and  a  soft 
dark  brown  eye,  with  very  great  native  refinement  and 
gentleness  of  manner.  Poor  soul !  her  hardest  clays  are 
before  her,  I  fear ;  for  the  daughter  with  whom  she  lives, 
and  for  whom  she  works  night  and  day,  is  the  wife  of  that 
worthless  fellow,  our  commissionnaire.  He  is  a  drunkard, 
and  not  much  more  than  four  fifths  "witted."  Harriet  is 
pew-opener  at  the  English  church,  and  gets  a  little  money 
from  that ;  the  clergyman  is  very  kind  to  her,  and  she  has 
the  promise  of  a  place  at  last  in  a  sort  of  "Old  Lady's 


ENCYCLICALS   OF  A    TRAVELLER.  359 

Home "  in  Copenhagen.  This  is  her  outlook !  I  must 
send  you  the  verses  she  presented  to  me  j'esterday.  I 
had  left  her  alone  for  the  greater  part  of  the  forenoon, 
and  she  took  to  her  pen  for  company.  That  was  the  way 
Katrina  used  to  amuse  herself  when  I  left  her  alone.  I 
always  found  her  sitting  with  her  elbows  on  the  table,  a 
pile  of  scribbled  sheets  in  front  of  her,  her  hair  pushed  off 
her  forehead,  and  a  general  expression  of  fine  frenzy  about 
her.  Katrina's  English  did  not  compare  with  Harriet's  at 
all ;  that  is,  it  was  not  so  good.  I  liked  it  far  better.  It 
was  one  perpetual  fund  of  amusement  to  me  ;  but  I  think 
Katrina  had  more  nearly  a  vein  of  genius  about  her,  and 
she  was  not  sentimental ;  whereas  Harriet  is  a  sentiment- 
alist of  the  first  water,  — no,  of  the  "  seventy  thousandth  "  ! 

PARIS,  September  19. 
I  kept  my  letter  and  brought  it  here  to  tell  you  about  Ole 

Bull's  funeral,  full  accounts  of  which  reached  the  H '& 

just  before  we  left  Munich  on  the  9th.  It  was  a  splendid 
tribute  to  the  dear  old  man  ;  I  shall  always  regret  that  I  did 
not  see  it.  His  home  is  on  a  beautiful  island  about  sixteen 
miles  from  Bergen.  If  it  were  only  possible  to  make  you 
understand  how  much  more  the  word  island  means  in 
Norway  than  anywhere  else  !  But  it  is  not.  To  those 
of  you  who  know  the  sort  of  mountain  pasture  in  which 
great  hillocks  of  moss  and  stone  are  thrown  up,  piled  up, 
crowded  in,  in  such  labyrinths  that  you  go  leaping  from 
one  to  the  other,  winding  in  and  out  in  crevice-like  paths, 
never  knowing  where  moss  leaves  off  and  stone  begins, 
—  where  you  will  strike  firm  footing,  and  where  you  will 
plunge  your  foot  down  suddenly  into  moss  above  your 
ankles  ;  and  to  those  of  you  who  love  the  country  and  the 
spring  in  the  country  so  well  that  you  know  just  the  look 
of  a  feathery  young  birch-tree  on  the  first  day  of  June, 
,  and  of  slender  young  spruce-trees  all  the  year  round,  it 
is  enough  to  say  that  if  you  take  a  dozen  miles  or  so  of  such 
a  pasture,  and  make  the  hillocks  many  feet  high,  and  then 
set  in  here  and  there  little  hollows  full  of  the  birches,  and 
a  ravine  or  two  full  of  the  young  spruces,  and  then  launch 
your  hillocks  and  birches  and  spruces  straight  out  into 
deep  blue  sea,  you  '11  have  something  such  an  island  as 
there  are  thousands  of  on  the  Norwaj-  coast.  Ole  Bull's 


360        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

home  was  on  such  an  island  as  this,  and  he  had  made  it 
an  ideally  beautiful  place.  Eighteen  miles  of  pathway  he 
had  made  in  the  labyrinths  of  the  island  ;  had  brought 
soil  from  the  shore,  and  set  gardens  in  hollows  here  and 
there.  The  house  is  a  picturesque  and  delightful  one ; 
and  in  the  great  music-room,  nearly  a  hundred  feet  long, 
there  he  lay  dead,  two  days,  in  state  like  a  king,  with 
steamers  full  of  sorrowing  friends  and  mourning  strangers 
coming  to  take  their  last  look  at  his  face.  The  king  sent  a 
letter  of  condolence  to  Mrs.  Bull,  and  the  peasants  came 
weeping  to  the  side  of  his  bed ;  from  highest  to  lowest, 
Norway  mourned.  On  the  day  of  the  funeral,  after  some 
short  services  at  the  house,  the  body  was  carried  on  board 
a  steamer,  to  be  taken  to  Bergen.  The  steamer  was 
draped  with  black  and  strewn  with  green.  I  believe  I 
have  told  you  of  the  beautiful  custom  the  Norwegians 
have  of  strewing  green  juniper  twigs  in  the  street  in  front 
of  their  houses  whenever  the}*  have  lost  a  friend.  No 
matter  how  far  awa}'  the  friend  may  have  lived,  when  they 
hear  of  his  death  they  strew  the  juniper  around  their  house 
to  show  that  a  death  has  given  them  sorrow.  It  was  a 
commentaiy  on  human  life  (and  death  !)  that  I  never  went 
out  in  Bergen  without  seeing  in  some  street,  and  often  in 
many,  the  juniper-strewn  sidewalks.  As  the  steamer  with 
Ole  Ball's  body  approached  the  entrance  of  Bergen  harbor, 
sixteen  steamers,  all  draped  in  black,  with  flags  at  half- 
mast,  sailed  out  to  meet  it,  turned,  and  fell  into  line  on 
either  side  to  convoy  it  to  shore.  Bands  were  playing  his 
music  all  the  way.  At  the  wharf  they  were  met  by  nearly 
all  Bergen  ;  and  the  body  was  borne  in  grand  procession 
through  the  streets,  which  were  strewn  thick  with  juniper 
from  the  wharf  to  the  cemetery,  at  least  two  or  three 
miles.  The  houses  were  all  draped  with  black,  and  many  of 
the  people  had  put  on  black.  The  golden  wreath  which 
was  given  him  in  San  Francisco  was  borne  in  the  proces- 
sion b}'  one  of  his  friends,  and  a  procession  of  little  girls 
bore  wreaths  and  bouquets  of  flowers.  The  grave  \vas 
hidden  and  half  filled  with  flowers ;  and  last  of  all,  after 
the  body  had  been  laid  there,  — last  and  most  touching  of 
all,  came  the  peasants,  crowds  of  them,  gathering  close, 
and  each  one  flinging  in  a  fern  leaf  or  a  juniper  bough  or  ;v 
bunrh  of  flowers.  Every  one  had  brought  something,  and 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  361 

the  grave  was  nearly  filled  up  with  their  offerings.  It  is 
worth  while  to  be  loved  like  that  by  a  people.  Whatever 
scientific  critics  may  say  of  Ole  Bull's  plaj'ing,  he  played 
so  that  he  swayed  the  hearts  of  the  common  people  ;  and 
his  own  nation  loved  him  and  were  proud  of  him,  just  as 
the  Danes  loved  Hans  Christian  Andersen,  with  a  love 
that  asked  no  indorsement  and  admitted  no  question  from 
the  outside  world.  The  school  of  music  to  which  Ole  Bull 
belonged  has  passed  away ;  but  what  scientific  art  has 
gained  the  people  have  lost.  It  will  never  be  seen  that 
one  of  these  modern  violinists  can  make  uneducated  people 
smile  and  weep  as  he  did.  The  flowers  that  are  dying  on 
his  coffin  are  all  immortelles.  Such  blossoms  as  these  will 
never  again  be  strewn  by  peasant  hands  in  a  player's 
grave. 

It  took  two  days  to  come  from  Munich  to  Paris, — two 
hard  days,  from  seven  in  the  morning  till  six  at  night. 
We  broke  the  journey  by  sleeping  at  Strasburg,  where  we 
had  just  one  hour  to  see  the  wonderful  cathedral  and  its 
clock.  The  clock  I  did  n't  care  so  much  about,  though  the 
trick  of  it  is  a  marvel ;  but  the  twilight  of  the  cathedral, 
lit  up  by  its  great  roses  of  topaz  and  amethyst,  I  shall 
never  forget  as  long  as  I  live.  In  my  next  letter  I  will 
tell  you  about  it.  But  now  I  have  only  time  to  copy 
Harriet's  verses,  and  send  off  this  letter.  Here  they 
are :  — 

DENMARK. 

When  again  in  your  own  bright  land  you  are, 

And  with  all  that  dearly  you  love, 
And  at  times  you  look  up  at  the  Northern  Star 

That  stands  on  the  sky  above, 
Remember,  then,  that  near  forgot, 

Here,  near  the  Gothic  strand, 
There  is  on  the  globe  a  little  spot,  — 
.    t  'T  is  Denmark,  a  beautiful  land. 

Now  at  harvest  time  from  there  you  flew, 
•  Like  the  birds  from  its  tranquil  shore ; 
They  return  at  springtime,  kind  and  true : 

May,  like  them,  you  return  once  more  ! 

Dear  Mrs.  Jakson,  I  remain  your  humble  and  thankful  servant, 

HARRIET. 

Poor  thing !  when  she  bade  me  good-b.y  she  began  to 
shed  tears,  and  I  had  to  be  almost  stern  with  her  to  stop 


362        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

their  flow.  "Tell  your  husband,"  she  said,  "  that  there 's 
a  little  creature  in  Denmark  that  you  've  made  very  happy, 
that'll  never  forget  }"ou,"  and  she  was  gone.  In  about 
ten  minutes  a  tap  at  the  door ;  there  was  Harriet  again, 
with  a  big  paper  of  grapes  and  a  deprecating  face.  ' '  Excuse 
me,  ma'am,  but  they  were  only  one  mark  and  a  half  a 
pound,  and  they  're  much  better  than  you  'd  get  them  in 
the  hotel.  Oh,  I  '11  not  lose  my  train,  ma'am  ;  1  've  plenty 
of  time."  And  with  another  kiss  on  my  hand  she  ran  out 
of  the  room.  Faithful  creature  !  I  shall  never  see  her  again 
in  this  world,  but  I  shall  remember  her  with  gratitude  as 
long  as  I  live.  Surely  nowhere  except  in  Norway  and 
Denmark  could  it  have  happened  to  a  person  to  find  in 
the  sudden  exigency  of  the  moment  two  such  devoted 
servants  as  Katrina  and  Harriet;  and  that  they  should 
have  both  been  rhymers  was  a  doubling  up  of  coincidences 
truly  droll. 

Paris  is  as  detestable  as  ever,  —  literally  a  howling  and 
waste  place  !  Of  all  the  yells  and  shrieks  that  ever  made 
air  discordant,  surely  the  cries  of  Paris  are  the  loudest 
and  worst.  My  room  looks  on  the  street ;  and  I  should 
say  that  at  least  three  different  Indian  tribes  in  distress 
and  one  in  drunken  hilarity  were  wailing  and  shouting 
under  my  windows  all  the  time !  As  for  the  fiacre-men, 
—  how  like  fiasco,  fiacre  looks  written  !  — they  drive  as  if 
their  souls'  salvation  depended  on  just  grazing  the  wheel 
of  every  vehicle  the}'  pass.  When  two  of  them  yell  out  at 
once,  as  they  go  by  each  other,  it  is  enough  to  deafen  one. 


III. 

DEAR  PEOPLE,  —  I  could  n't  give  you  a  better  illustra- 
tion of  what  happens  to  you  in  foreign  countries  when 
you  pin  your  faith  on  people  who  are  said  to  "  speak  Eng- 
lish here,"  than  by  giving  you  the  tale  of  how  I  went  from 
Copenhagen  to  Lubeck.  To  begin  with,  I  explained  to 
the  porter  of  the  Konigvon  Denmark  Hotel,  who  is  one  of 
the  English-speaking  attaches  of  that  very  good  hotel, 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  363 

that  I  wished,  in  going  to  Lubeck,  to  avoid  water  as  much 
as  possible.  I  endeavored  to  convey  to  him  that  my  hor- 
ror of  it  was  in  fact  Irydrophobic,  and  that  I  could  go 
miles  out  of  toy  way  to  escape  it.  He  understood  me 
perfectly,  he  said  ;  and  he  explained  to  me  a  fine  route  by 
which  I  was  to  cross  island  after  island  by  rail,  have  only 
short  intervals  of  water  between,  and  come  comfortably 
to  Lubeck  by  eight  in  the  evening,  provided  I  would  leave 
Copenhagen  at  G.45  in  the  morning,  which  I  was  only  too 
happy  to  do  for  the  sake  of  escaping  a  long  steamboat 
journey.  So  I  arranged  everything  to  that  end  ;  explained 
to  the  one  waiter  who  spoke  English  that  I  must  have 
breakfast  on  the  table  at  5.40,  as  I  was  to  leave  the  house 
at  6.15.  He  understood  perfectly,  he  said.  (I  also  com- 
missioned him  to  buy  a  pound  of  grapes  for  my  lunch- 
basket;  the  relevancy  of  this  will  appear  later.)  I  then 
carefully  explained  to  the  worthy  old  lad3T  who  had  prom- 
ised for  a  small  consideration  to  take  me  to  Munich,  that 
she  must  be  on  the  spot  at  six,  with  her  luggage  ;  and  that 
she  was  on  no  account  to  bring  anything  to  lift  in  her 
hands,  because  my  own  hand-luggage  would  be  all  she 
could  well  handle.  Then  I  asked  for  my  bill,  that  it  might 
be  settled  the  night  beforehand,  to  have  nothing  on  hand 
in  the  morning  but  to  get  off.  This  was  doubly  important, 
as  the  landlord  had  promised  to  change  my  Danish  money 
into  German  money  for  me,  —  the  Danish  bankers  having 
no  German  money.  They  so  hate  Germany  that  they  con- 
sider it  a  disgrace,  I  believe,  even  to  handle  marks  and 
pfennigs.  The  clerk,  who  also  "speaks  English,"  said 
he  understood  me  perfectly ;  so  I  went  upstairs  cheerful 
and  at  ease  in  ray  mind.  In  half  an  hour  my  bill  arrived ; 
and  I  sent  down  by  the  waiter,  who  spoke  "a  leetle  " 
English,  five  hundred  Danish  crowns  to  pay  my  bill, 
and  have  four  hundred  crowns  returned  to  me  in  marks. 
Waited  one  hour,  no  money  ;  rang,  same  waiter  appeared. 

"  Where  is  my  money  ?  " 

"  Yees,  it  have  gone  out ;  it  will  soon  return.  He  is  not 
here." 

Waited  half  an  hour  longer;  rang  again. 

"  Where  is  my  money?" 

"  Yees,  strachs.     He  shall  all  right,  strachs." 

"  But  I  am  very  tired  ;   I  wisli  to  go  to  bed." 


364        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

"  Yees,  it  shall  be  koramen." 

Waited  another  half-hour,  —  it  was  now  quarter  of 
eleven;  wrote  on  a  bit  of  paper,  "I  have  gone  to  bed; 
, cannot  take  the  money  to-night.  Have  it  ready  for  me  at 
six  in  the  morning."  Rang,  and  gave  it  to  the  waiter, 
ejaculating,  "  Bureau  ; "  and  pointing  downstairs,  shut  the 
door  on  him  and  went  to  bed.  The  last  thing  I  heard 
from  him,  as  I  shut  the  door,  was,  "  Strachs,  strachs ! " 
That  means  "  Immediately ;"  and  there  is  a  Norwegian 
proverb  that  "  when  the  Norwegian  says  '  Strachs,'  he  will 
be  with  you  in  half  an  hour." 

At  twenty-five  minutes  before  six  I  was  in  the  dining- 
room,  bonneted,  all  ready ;  no  sign  or  sj'mptom  of 
breakfast.  I  went  to  the  little  room  beyond,  where  the 
waiters  are  to  be  found.  There  was  the  one  who  speaks 
least  English.  "  Oh,  goodness  !  "  said  I,  "  where  is  Wil- 
helm?"  Wilhelm  being  the  one  mainstay  of  the  estab- 
lishment in  the  matter  of  English,  and  the  one  who  had 
waited  upon  me  during  all  in}-  stay. 

"  Ya,  ya.     Wilhelm  here  ;  soon  will  be  kommen." 

" But  I  must  have  my  breakfast;  I  leave  the  house  in 
half  an  hour." 

"Ya,  ya.  Wilhelm  is  not  yet.  He  sleeps."  And  the 
good-natured  little  fellow  darted  off  to  call  him.  Poor 
Wilhelm  had  indeed  overslept ;  but  he  appeared  in  a  mi- 
raculousl}*  short  time,  got  my  breakfast  together  by  bits, 
got  the  money  from  the  clerk,  and  did  his  best  to  explain 
to  me  how  it  was  that  a  given  sum  of  mone}T  was  at  once 
more  and  less  in  marks  than  it  was  in  kroner.  I  crammed 
it  all  into  my  pocket,  and  ran  downstairs  to  find  —  no  old 
lady;  her  "knapsack"  on  the  driver's  seat,  but  she  her- 
self not  there.  Four  different  people  said  something  to 
me  about  it,  and  I  could  not  understand  one  word  they 
said ;  so  I  stepped  into  the  carriage,  sat  down,  and  re- 
signed myself  to  whatever  was  coming  next.  After  about 
ten  minutes  she  appeared,  breathless,  coming  down  the 
stairs  of  the  hotel.  She  had  mounted  to  my  room,  and, 
unmindful  of  the  significant  fact  that  the  door  was  wide 
open  and  all  my  luggage  gone,  had  been  waiting  there  for 
me.  This  augured  well  for  the  journey  !  However,  there 
was  no  time  for  misgivings  ;  and  we  drove  off  at  a  tear- 
ing rate,  late  for  the  train.  Suddenly  I  spied  a  most 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  365 

disreputable-looking  parcel  on  the  seat,  —  large,  clumsy, 
done  up  in  an  old  dirty  calico  curtain,  from  which  a  few 
brass  rings  were  still  hanging. 

•  •  What  is  that  ?  "  I  exclaimed. 

ic  Only  my  best  gown,  ma'am,  and  my  velvet  cloak.  I 
could  n't  disgrace  you,  ma'am." 

"  Disgrace  me  !  "  thought  I.  "I  was  never  before  dis- 
graced by  such  a  bundle." 

"  But  I  told  you  to  bring  nothing  whatever  to  carry  in 
your  hands,"  I  said  ;  "  you  must  put  that  into  your  knap- 
sack. My  roll  and  basket  are  all  you  can  possibly  lift." 

"  Oh,  ma'am,  it  would  ruin  it  to  put  it  in  the  knapsack. 
I'm  not  a  rich  lad}-,  like  you,  ma'am  ;  it's  all  I've  got: 
but  I  'd  not  like  to  disgrace  you.  I  was  out  last  night  try- 
ing to  hire  a  small  trunk  to  bring ;  but  you  would  n't  believe 
it,  ma'am,  they  wanted  eight  kroner  down  for  the  deposit 
for  the  value  of  it.  But  I  '11  not  disgrace  you,  ma'am, 
and  I  '11  forget  nothing.  I  've  a  good  head  at  counting. 
You'll  see  I'll  not  overlook  anything." 

"  Never  mind,"  I  said  ;  '"you  must  wear  your  cloak  [she 
had  on  only  a  little  thin,  clinging,  black  crape  shawl,  — 
the  most  pitiful  of  garments,  and  no  more  protection  than 
a  pocket-handkerchief  against  cold],  and  the  dress  must 
go  into  the  knapsack  at  Lubeck.  I  will  put  it  into  my 
own  roll  as  soon  as  we  are  in  the  cars." 

At  the  station  —  luckily,  as  I  thought  —  the  ticket-seller 
spoke  English,  and  replied  readily  to  my  inquiry  for  a 
ticket  to  Lubeck,  by  rail,  "Yes,  by  Kiel."  Then  there 
came  a  man  who  wanted  three  kroner  more  because  my 
trunk' was  heavy,  and  another  who  wanted  a  few  pfennigs 
for  having  helped  the  first  one  lift  it.  I  tried  for  a  minute 
to  count  out  the  sum  he  had  mentioned,  and  then  I  said, 
"  Oh,  good  gracious,  take  it  ah*  !  "  empt}'ing  the  few  h'ttle 
coppers  and  tin}-  silver  bits  —  which  I  knew  must  be,  all 
told,  not  a  quarter  of  a  dollar  —  into  his  hand.  He  said 
something  which,  in  my  innocence,  I  supposed  was  thanks, 
but  Brita  told  me  afterwards  that  he  was  a  "  fearfully 
rough  man,  and  what  he  said  was  to  call  me  a  '  damned 
German  devil ! '  You  see,  ma'am,  they  all  hate  the  Ger- 
mans so,  and  hearing  me  speak  English,  he  thought  it  was 
German.  The  French,  too,  ma'am,  —  they  hate  the  Ger- 
mans too.  They  say  that  Sara  Bernhardt,  —  I  dare  say 


366        NORWAY.  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

you  've  seen  her,  ma'am,  —  they  say  she  nearly  starved 
herself  all  in  her  travelling  through  Germany,  because  she 
wouldn't  eat  the  German  food." 

At  the  train  to  see  me  off  were  two  dear  warm-hearted 
Danish  women,  —  mother  and  daughter,  —  to  whom  I  had 
brought  a  letter  from  friends  in  America.  With  barely 
time  to  thank  them  and  say  good-by,  I  and  my  old  lady 
and  her  bundle  and  my  own  three  parcels  were  all  hus- 
tled into  a  carriage,  the  door  slammed  and  locked,  and  we 
were  off.  Then  I  sank  back  and  considered  the  situation. 
I  had  fancied  that  all  that  was  necessary  was  to  have  a 
person  who  could  speak,  —  that  if  I  had  but  a  tongue  at  my 
command,  it  would  answer  my  purposes  almost  as  well  in 
another  person's  head  as  in  my  own.  But  I  was  fast  learn- 
ing my  mistake.  This  good  old  woman,  who  had  never 
been  out  of  Denmark  in  her  life,  had  no  more  idea  which 
way  to  turn  or  what  to  do  in  a  railway  station  than  a 
baby.  The  first  five  minutes  of  our  journey  had  shown 
that.  She  stood,  bundles  in  hand,  her  bonnet  falling  off 
the  back  of  her  head,  her  crape  shawl  clinging  limp  to  her 
figure ;  her  face  full  of  nervous  uncertainty,  —  the  very 
ideal  of  a  bewildered  old  woman,  such  as  one  always  seea 
at  railwaj'-  stations.  The  thought  of  being  taken  charge 
of,  all  the  way  from  Copenhagen  to  Munich,  by  this  type 
of  elderly  female,  was,  at  the  outset,  awful ;  but  very  soon 
the  comical  side  of  it  came  over  me  so  thoroughly  that  I 
began  to  think  it  would,  on  the  whole,  be  more  entertaining. 

When  she  had  told  me  the  day  before,  as  we  were  driv- 
ing about  in  Copenhagen,  that  she  had  never  in  her  life 
been  out  of  Denmark,  though  she  was  sixty-four  years 
old,  I  said,  "  Really  that  is  a  strange  thing,  —  for  you  to 
be  taking  your  first  journey  at  that  age." 

"Oh,  well,  ma'am,"  she  said,  "I'm  such  a  child  of 
Nature  that  I  shall  enjoy  it  as  much  as  if  I  were  younger, 
and  1  've  all  the  Danish  history,  ma'am,  at  my  tongue's 
end,  ma'am.  There's  nothing  I  can't  tell  you,  ma'am. 
Though  we  've  been  ver}-  hard-working,  I  've  always  been 
one  that  was  for  making  all  I  could  :  and  I  've  been  with 
m}-  children  at  their  lessons  always,  —  we  gave  them  all 
good  schooling ;  and  I've  a  volume  of  Danish  poetiy  I've 
written,  ma'am, — a  volume  that  thick,"  marking  off  at 
least  two  inches  on  her  finger. 


ENCYCLICALS   OF  A   TRAVELLER.  367 

"Danish?"  said  I.  "Why  did  you  not  write  it  in 
English  ?  " 

"  Well,  ma'am,  being  raised  here,  the  Danish  tongue 
is  more  my  own,  much  as  I  spoke  English  always  till  my 
parents  died  ;  but  I  '11  write  some  in  English  for  you, 
ma'am,  before  we  part." 

So  I  had  for  the  third  time  alighted  on  a  poet.  "  Birds 
of  a  feather,"  thought  I  to  myself;  but  it  really  is  extraor- 
dinary. Norwegian,  Dane  —  I  wonder,  if  I  take  a  Ger- 
man maid  to  carry  me  to  Oberammergau,  if  she  also  will 
turn  out  lt  a  child  of  Nature"  and  a  scribbler  of  verses. 

The  way  from  Copenhagen  southward  and  westward  bv 
land  is  delightful.  It  plunges  immediately  into  a  rich 
farming-country,  level  as  an  Illinois  prairie,  and  with  com- 
fortable farm-houses  set  in  enclosures'  of  trees,  as  they  are 
there  ;  and  I  presume  for  the  same  reason,  —  to  break  the 
force  of  the  winds  which  might  sweep  from  one  end  of 
Denmark  to  the  other,  without  so  much  as  a  hillock  to 
stay  them :  no  fences,  only  hedges,  and  great  tracts  with- 
out even  a  hedge,  marked  off  and  divided  by  differing 
colors  from  the  different  crops.  The  second  crop  of  clover 
was  in  full  flower ;  acres  of  wheat  or  barley,  just  being 
sheaved  ;  wagons  piled  full,  rolling  down  shaded  roads  with 
long  lines  of  trees  on  each  side.  Roeskilde,  Ringsted, 
Soro,  —  three  towns,  but  seemingly  only  one  great  farm, 
for  seventeen  miles  out  of  Copenhagen.  Then  we  began 
to  smell  the  salt  water,  and  to  get  a  fresh  breeze  in  at  the 
windows  ;  and  presently  we  came  to  Kosor,  where  we  were 
to  take  boat.  A  big  man  in  uniform  stood  at  the  door  of 
the  station,  looked  at  our  tickets,  said  "  Kiel,"  and  waved 
his  hand  toward  a  little  steamer  lying  at  the  dock. 

"The}'  say  they  fear  it  will  be  rough,  ma'am,  as  the 
wind  is  from  the  southeast,"  said  the  old  ladj-. 

"Oh,  well,"  said  I,  "it  is  only  an  hour  and  a  half 
across.  We  cross  the  Big  Belt  to  Nyborg." 

She  accepted  my  statement  as  confidingly  as  a  child, 
and  we  made  ourselves  comfortable  on  the  upper  deck. 
It  was  half-past  nine  o'clock.  I  took  out  1113-  guide-book 
and  studied  up  the  descriptions  of  the  different  towns  we 
were  to  pass  through  after  our  next  landing.  A  green 
dome-like  island  came  into  sight,  with  a  lighthouse  on  top, 
looking  like  the  stick  at  the  top  of  a  haystack.  "  That 's  in 


368        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

the  middle  of  the  Belt,  ma'am,"  said  Brita.  "  In  the  win- 
ter many 's  the  time  the  passengers  across  here  have  to 
land  there  and  stay  a  day,  or  maybe  two ;  and  sometimes 
they  come  on  the  ice-boats.  Very  dangerous  they  are  ;  they 
pull  them  on  the  ice,  and  if  the  ice  breaks,  jump  in  and 
row  them." 

It  seemed  to  me  that  we  were  bearing  strangely  to  the 
south :  land  was  disappearing  from  view  ;  the  waves  grew 
bigger  and  higher ;  spray  dashed  on  the  deck ;  white-caps 
tossed  in  all  directions. 

"I  believe  we  are  going  out  to  sea,"  said  I. 

"It  does  look  like  it,  ma'am,"  replied  the  "child  of 
Nature."  ' '  Shall  I  go  and  ask  ?  " 

"Yes,"  I  replied,  "go  and  ask."  She  returned  with 
consternation  in  every  line  of  her  aged  face. 

"  Oh,  ma'am,  it's  strange  they  should  have  told  3*ou  so 
wrong.  We  're  on  this  boat  till  four  in  the  afternoon." 

And  so  we  were,  and  a  half-hour  to  boot,  owing  to  the 
southeast  wind  which  was  dead  ahead  all  the  way.  Every- 
body was  ill,  —  my  poor  old  protectress  most  of  all,  and  for 
the  first  time  in  her  life. 

"  Oh,  ma'am,  I  did  not  think  it  could  be  like  this,"  she 
gasped.  "  I  never  did  feel  so  awful."  I  sat  grimly  still  in 
one  spot  on  the  deck  all  that  day.  What  a  day  it  was ! 
About  noon  it  occurred  to  me  that  some  grapes  would  be 
a  relief  to  my  misery.  Opening  the  basket  and  taking  out 
the  bag  in  which  the  English-speaking  waiter  had  told  me 
were  my  grapes,  I  put  in  my  hand  and  drew  out  —  a  hard, 
corky,  tasteless  pear !  Thanks  to  the  southeast  wind,  we 
came 'a  halt-hour  late  to  Kiel,  and  thereby  missed  the 
train  to  Lubeck  which  we  should  have  taken,  waited 
two  hours  and  a  half  in  the  station,  and  then  had  to 
take  three  different  trains  one  after  the  other,  and  pay  an 
extra  fare  on  each  one  ;  how  we  ever  stumbled  through  I 
don't  know,  but  we  did,  and  at  half-past  eleven  we  were 
in  Lubeck,  safe  and  sound,  and  not  more  than  three  quar- 
ters dead  !  and  I  shall  laugh  whenever  I  think  of  it  as  long 
as  I  live. 

Lubeck  is  an  old  town,  well  worth  several  days'  study ; 
and  the  Stadt  Hamburg  is  a  comfortable  house  to  sleep 
and  be  fed  in.  You  can  have  a  mutton-chop  there,  and 
that  is  a  thing  hard  to  find  in  Germany ;  and  you  can 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  369 

have  your  mutton-chop  brought  to  you  by  an  "  English- 
speaking  "  waiter  who  speaks  English  ;  and  you  ma}-  have 
it  delicatel}*  served  in  your  own  room,  or  in  a  pretty  dining- 
room,  or  on  a  front  porch,  walled  in  thick  by  oleander- 
trees,  ten  and  fifteen  feet  high,  —  a  lustrous  wall  of  green, 
through  which  you  have  glimpses  of  such  old  gables  and 
high  peaked  roofs,  red-tiled,  and  scooped  into  queer  curves, 
as  I  do  not  know  elsewhere  except  in  Nuremberg.  It  all 
dates  back  to  1100  and  1200,  and  thereabouts,  —  which 
does  not  sound  so  very  old  to  you  when  you  have  just 
come  from  Norway,  where  a  thing  is  not  ancient  unless 
it  dates  back  to  somewhere  near  Christ's  time ;  but  for  a 
mediaeval  town,  Lubeck  has  a  fine  flavor  of  antiquity  about 
it.  It  has  some  splendid  old  gateways,  and  plenty  of  old 
houses,  two-thirds  roof,  one-third  gable,  and  four-fifths 
dormer-window,  with  door-posts  and  corners  carved  in  the 
leisurely  way  peculiar  to  that  time.  Really,  one  would 
think  a  man  must  have  his  house  ordered  before  he  was 
born,  to  have  got  it  done  in  time  to  die  in,  in  those  days. 
I  have  speculated  very  much  about  this  problem,  and  it 
puzzles  me  yet.  So  many  of  these  old  houses  look  as  if  it 
must  have  taken  at  least  the  years  of  one  generation  to  have 
made  the  carvings  on  them ;  perhaps  the  building  and 
ornamentation  of  the  house  was  a  thing  handed  down  from 
father  to  son  and  to  son's  son,  like  famous  games  of  chess. 
Nothing  less  than  this  seems  to  me  to  explain  the  elabora- 
tion of  fine  hand-wrought  decorations  in  the  way  of  carving 
and  tapestries,  which  were  the  chief  splendors  of  splendid 
living  in  those  old  times.  There  is  a  room  in  the  Mer- 
chants' Exchange  in  Lubeck,  which  is  entirely  walled  and 
ceiled  with  carved  wood-work  taken  out  of  an  ancient  house 
belonging  to  one  of  Lubeck's  early  burgomasters.  These 
carvings  were  done  in  1585  by  "  an  unknown  master,"  and 
were  recently  transferred  to  this  room  to  preserve  them. 
The  panels  of  wood  alternate  with  panels  of  exquisitely 
wrought  alabaster ;  two  rows  of  these  around  the  room. 
There  were  old  cupboard  doors,  now  firmly  fastened  on  the 
wall,  never  to  swing  again  ;  and  one  panel,  with  a  group  of 
wood-carvers  at  work,  said  —  or  guessed  —  to  be  the  por- 
traits of  the  carver  and  his  assistants.  The  old  shutters  are 
there,  —  each  decorated  with  a  group,  or  single  figure,  — 
every  face  as  expressive  as  if  it  were  painted  in  oil  by  a 


370          NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

master's  hand.  Every  inch  of  the  wall  is  wrought  into 
some  form  of  decorations  ;  the  ceiling  is  carved  into  great 
squares,  with  alabaster  knobs  at  the  intersections  ;  a  superb 
chandelier  of  ancient  Venetian  glass  hangs  in  the  middle  ; 
and  the  new  room  stands  to-day  exactly  as  the  old  one 
stood  in  the  grand  old  burgomaster's  da}r.  It  is  kept  in- 
sured by  the  Merchants'  Guild  for  $30,000,  but  twice  that 
sum  could  not  replace  it.  The  Merchants'  Guild  of  Lu- 
beck  must  contain  true  art-lovers  ;  a  large  room  opening 
from  this  one  has  also  finely  carved  walls,  and  a  frieze  of 
the  old  burgomasters'  portraits,  and  another  fine  Venetian 
glass  chandelier,  two  centuries  old.  Through  the  window 
I  caught  a  glimpse  of  a  spiral  stair  outside  the  building ; 
it  wound  in  short  turns,  and  the  iron  balustrade  was  a  wall 
of  green  vines  ;  it  looked  like  the  stair  to  the  chamber  of  a 
princess,  but  it  was  only  the  outside  way  to  another  room 
where  the  Merchants  held  their  sittings. 

The  largest  of  the  Lubeck  churches  is  the  Church  of  Saint 
Mary.  This  was  built  so  big,  it  is  said,  simply  to  outdo  the 
cathedral  in  size,  the  Lubeck  citizens  being  determined  to 
have  their  church  bigger  than  the  bishop's.  The  result  is 
three  hundred  and  thirty-five  feet  of  a  succession  of  frightful 
rococo  things,  enough  to  drive  the  thought  of  worship  out  of 
any  head  that  has  eyes  in  it.  The  exterior  is  fine,  being  of 
the  best  style  of  twelfth-century  brick- work,  and  there  are 
some  fine  and  interesting  things  to  be  seen  inside  ;  but  the 
general  effect  of  the  interior  is  indescribably  hideous,  with 
huge  grotesque  carvings  in  black  and  white  marble  and 
painted  wood,  at  every  pillar  of  the  arches.  In  one  of  the 
chapels  is  a  series  of  paintings,  ascribed  to  Holbein,  —  "  The 
Dance  of  Death."  It  is  a  ghastty  picture,  with  a  certain 
morbid  fascination  about  it,  —  a  series  of  fantastic  figures, 
alternating  with  grim  skeleton  figures  of  Death.  The  c>m- 
peror,  the  pope,  the  king  and  queen,  the  law-giver,  the 
merchant,  the  peasant,  the  miser,  — all  are  there,  hand  in 
hand  with  the  grim,  grappling,  leaping  skeleton,  who  will 
draw  them  away.  Under  each  figure  is  a  stanza  of  verse 
representing  his  excuse  for  delay,  his  reply  to  Death,  —  all 
in  A'ain.  This  chapel  had  the  most  uncanny  fascination 
to  my  companion. 

"  Oh,  ma'am!  oh,  indeed,  ma'am,  it  is  too  true!"  she 
exclaimed,  walking  about,  and  peering  through  her  spec- 


ENCYCLICALS   OF  A   TRAVELLER.  371 

taclcs  at  each  motto.  "  It  is  all  the  same  for  the  pope  and 
the  emperor.  Death  calls  us  all ;  and  we  all  would  like 
to  stay  a  little  longer." 

By  a  fine  bronze  reclining  statue  of  one  of  the  old  bish- 
ops she  lingered.  "Is  it  not  wonderful,  ma'am,  the  pride 
there  is  in  this  poor  world?"  she  said.  The  reflection 
seemed  to  me  a  very  just  one,  as  I  too  looked  at  the  old 
man  lying  there  in  his  mitre,  with  the  sacred  wafer  osten- 
tatiously held  in  one  hand,  and  his  crosier  in  the  other ; 
every  inch  of  him,  and  of  the  great  bronze  slab  on  which 
he  lay,  wrought  as  exquisitely  as  the  finest  etching. 

At  twelve  o'clock  every  da}*  a  crowd  gathers  in  this 
church  to  see  a  procession  of  little  figures  come  out  of  the 
huge  clock  ;  the  Lubeck  people,  it  seems,  never  tire  of  this 
small  miracle.  It  must  be  acknowledged  that  it  is  a  droll 
sight:  but  one  would  think,  seeing  that  there  are  only 
forty  thousand  people  in  the  town,  that  there  would  now 
and  then  be  a  day  without  a  crowd ;  yet  the  sacristan 
said,  that,  rain  or  shine,  ever}7  da}',  the  little  chapel  was 
full  at  the  striking  of  the  first  stroke  of  twelve.  The  show 
is  on  the  back  of  the  clock,  which  detracts  very  much  from 
its  effect.  At  the  instant  of  twelve  a  tiny  white  statue 
lifted  its  arm,  struck  a  hammer  on  the  bell  twelve  times ; 
at  the  first  stroke  a  door  opened,  and  out  came  a  proces- 
sion of  eight  figures,  called  the  Emperor  and  the  Electors ; 
each  glided  around  the  circle,  paused  in  the  middle,  made 
a  jerky  bow  to  the  figure  of  Christ  in  the  centre,  and  then 
disappeared  in  a  door  in  the  other  side,  which  closed  after 
them.  The  figures  seemed  only  a  few  inches  tall  at  that 
great  height ;  and  the  whole  thing  like  part  of  a  Punch 
and  Judy  show,  and  quite  in  keeping  with  the  rococo  orna- 
ments on  the  pillars.  But  the  crowd  gazed  as  devoutly 
as  if  it  had  been  the  elevation  of  the  Host  itself;  and  I 
hurried  away,  fearing  that  they  might  resent  the  irreverent 
look  on  my  countenance. 

There  are  some  carved  brass  tablets  which  are  superb, 
and  a  curious  old  altar-piece,  with  doors  opening  after 
doors,  like  a  succession  of  wardrobes,  one  inside  the 
other,  the  fii-st  doors  painted  on  the  inside,  the  second  also 
painted,  and  disclosing,  on  being  opened,  a  series  of  won- 
derful wood  carvings  of  Scriptural  scenes,  these  open- 
ing out  again  and  showing  still  others ;  a  fine  canopy  of 


372          NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY, 

wrought  wood  above  them,  as  delicate  as  filigree.  These 
are  disfigured,  as  so  man}-  of  the  exquisite  wood  carvings 
of  this  time  are,  by  being  painted  in  grotesque  colors  ;  but 
the  carving  is  marvellous.  The  thing  that  interested  me 
most  in  this  church  was  a  tiny  little  stone  mouse  carved  at 
the  base  of  one  of  the  pillars.  You  might  go  all  your  life 
to  that  church  and  never  see  it.  I  searched  for  it  long  be- 
fore I  found  it.  It  is  a  tiny  black  mouse  gnawing  at  the 
root  of  an  oak ;  and  some  old  stone- worker  put  it  in  there 
six  hundred  years  ago,  because  it  was  the  ancient  emblem 
of  the  city.  There  was  also  a  line  of  old  saints  and  apostles 
carved  on  the  ends  of  the  pews,  that  were  flue ;  a  Saint 
Christopher  with  the  child  on  his  shoulder  that  I  would 
have  liked  to  filch  and  carry  away. 

In  the  Jacobi  Kirche — a  church  not  quite  so  old  —  is  a 
remarkable  old  altar,  which  a  rich  burgomaster  hit  on  the 
device  of  bestowing  on  the  church  and  immortalizing  his 
own  family  in  it  at  the  same  time.  To  make  it  all  right 
for  the  church,  he  had  the  scene  of  the  crucifixion  carved 
in  stone  for  the  centre  ;  then  on  the  doors,  which  must  be 
thrown  back  to  show  this  stone  carving,  he  had  himself 
and  his  family  painted.  And  I  venture  to  say  that  the 
event  justifies  his  expectations  ;  for  one  looks  ten  minutes 
at  the  burgomaster's  sons  and  daughters  and  wife  for  one 
at  the  stone  carving  inside.  It  is  a  family  group  not  to  be 
forgotten,  —  the  burgomaster  and  his  five  sons  behind  him 
on  one  door,  and  his  wife  with  her  five  daughters  in  front  of 
her  on  the  other  door.  They  are  all  kneeling,  so  as  to  seem 
to  be  adoring  the  central  figures,  —  all  but  the  burgomas- 
ter's wife,  who  stands  tall  and  stately,  stiif  in  gold  brocade, 
with  a  missal  in  one  hand  and  a  long  feather  in  the  other ; 
a  high  cap  of  the  same  brocade,  flying  sleeves  at  the  shoul- 
der, and  a  long  bodice  in  front  complete  the  dame's  array. 
Three  of  the  daughters  wear  high  foolscaps  of  white  ;  white 
robes  trimmed  with  ermine,  falling  from  the  back  of  the 
neck,  thrown  open  to  show  fine  scarlet  gowns,  with  bod- 
ices laced  over  white,  and  coining  down  nearly  to  their 
knees  in  front.  Two  little  things  in  long-sleeved  dark- 
green  gowns  —  "not  out"  yet,  I  suppose  —  kneel  mod- 
estly in  front ;  and  a  nun  and  a  saint  or  a  Virgin  Mary 
are  tin-own  into  the  group  to  make  it  holy.  The  burgo- 
master is  in  a  black  far-trimmed  robe,  kneeling  with  a 


ENCYCLICALS   OF  A   TRAVELLER.  373 

book  open  before  him,  — the  very  model  of  a  Pharisee  at 
family  prayers,  —  his  five  sons  kneeling  behind  him  in 
scarlet  robes  trimmed  with  dark  fur. 

The  sacristan  said  something  in  German  to  Brita, 
which  she  instantly  translated  to  me  as  "Oh,  ma'am,  to 
think  of  it !  They  're  all  buried  here  under  our  very  feet, 
ma'am,  —  the  whole  family  !  And  they  'd  to  leave  all  that 
finery  behind  them,  did  n't  the}7,  ma'am  ?  "  The  thought 
of  their  actual  dust  being  under  our  feet  at  that  moment 
seemed  to  make  the  family  portraits  much  more  real.  I 
dare  say  that  burgomaster  never  did  anything  worthy  of 
being  remembered  in  all  his  life  ;  but  he  has  hit  on  a  device 
which  will  secure  him  and  his  race  a  place  in  the  knowledge 
of  men  for  centuries  to  come. 

In  the  Rathhaus  —  which  is  one  of  the  quaintest  build- 
ings in  Lubeck  —  there  is  an  odd  old  chimney-piece.  It 
is  downstairs,  in  what  one  would  call  vaults,  except  that 
they  are  used  for  the  rooms  of  a  restaurant.  It  has  been 
for  centuries  a  Lubeck  custom  that  when  a  couple  have  been 
married  in  the  Church  of  Saint  Mary  (which  adjoins  the  Rath- 
haus) ,  they  should  come  into  this  room  to  drink  their  first 
winecup  together  ;  and,  by  way  of  giving  a  pleasant  turn  to 
things  for  the  bridegroom,  the  satirical  old  wood-carvers 
wrought  a  chimney-piece  for  this  room  with  a  cock  on  one 
side,  a  hen  on  the  other,  the  Israelitish  spies  bearing  the 
huge  bunch  of  the  over-rated  grapes  of  Eshcol  between 
them,  and  in  the  centre  below  it  this  motto :  "  Many  a 
man  sings  loudly  when  they  bring  him  his  bride.  If  he 
knew  what  they  brought  him,  he  might  weh1  weep."  It  is 
an  odd  thing  how  universally,  when  this  sort  of  slur  upon 
marriage  is  aimed  at,  it  is  the  man's  disappointment  which 
is  set  forth  or  predicted,  and  not  the  woman's.  It  is  a  very 
poor  rule,  no  doubt ;  but  it  may  at  least  be  said  to  '*  work 
both  wa3's."  There  used  to  be  an  underground  passage- 
way by  which  they  came  from  the  church  into  this  room, 
but  it  is  shut  up  now.  While  we  sat  waiting  in  the  outer 
hall  upstairs  for  the  janitor  to  come  and  show  us  this 
room,  a  bridal  couple  came  down  and  passed  out  to  their 
carriage,  —  plain  people  of  the  working  class.  She  wore 
a  black  alpaca  gown,  and  had  no  bridal  sign  or  symptom 
about  her,  except  the  green  myrtle  wreath  on  her  head. 
But  few  brides  looli  happier  than  she  did. 


374        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

The  Rathhaus  makes  one  side  of  the  Market-place, 
which  was,  like  all  market-places,  picturesque  at  eleven  in 
the  morning,  dirty  and  dismal  at  four  in  the  afternoon. 
I  drove  through  it  several  times  in  the  course  of  the  fore- 
noon ;  and  at  last  the  women  came  to  know  me,  and  nodded 
and  smiled  as  we  passed.  Their  hats  were  wonderful  to 
see,  —  cocked  up  on  top  of  a  neat  white  cap,  with  its  frill 
all  at  the  back  and  none  in  front ;  the  hats  shaped  —  well, 
nobody  could  say  how  they  were  shaped  —  like  half  a 
washbowl  bent  up,  with  the  little  round  centre  rim  left  in 
behind !  I  wonder  if  that  gives  an  idea  to  anybody  who 
has  not  seen  the  hat.  The  real  wonder,  however,  was  not 
in  the  shape,  but  in  the  material.  They  are  made  of  wood, 

—  actually  of  wood,  —  split  up  into  the  finest  threads,  and 
sewed  like  straw ;  and  the  women  make  them  themselves. 
All  the  vegetable  women  had  theirs  bound  with  bright 
green,  with  long  green  loops  hanging  down  behind  ;  but 
the  fishwomen  had  theirs  bound  with  narrow  black  bind- 
ing round  the  edge,  lined  with  purple  calico,  and  with 
black  ribbon  at  the  back.     Finally,  after  staring  a  dozen 
of  the  good  souls  out  of  countenance  looking  at  their  heads, 
I  bought  one  of  the  bonnets  outright !     It  was  the  clean- 
est creature  ever  seen  that  sold  it  to  me.     She  pulled  it 
off  her  head,  and  sold   it  as  readily  as  she  would  have 
sold  me  a  dozen  eels  out  of  her  basket ;  and  I  carried  it 
on  my  arm  all  the  way  from  Lubeck  to  Cassel,  and  from 
Cassel  to  Munich,  to  the  great  bewilderment  of  many  rail- 
way officials  and  travellers.     Before  I  had  concluded  my 
bargain  there  was  a  crowd  ten  deep  all  around  the  carriage. 
Everybodj-  —  men,  women,  children — left  their  baskets  and 
stalls,  and  came  to  look  on.     I  believe  I  could  have  bought 
the  entire  wardrobe  of  the  whole  crowd,  if  I  had  so  wished, 

—  so  eager  and  pleased  did  they  look,  talking  volubly  with 
each  other,  and  looking  at  me.     It  was  a  great  occasion 
for  Brita,  who  harangued  them  all  by  instalments  from 
the  front  seat,  and  explained  to  them  that  the  bonnet  w;vs 
going  all  the  way  to  America,  and  that  her  "  lady"  had  a 
great  liking  for  all  "national"  things,  which  touched  ono 
old  lady's  patriotism  so  deeply  that  she  pulled  off  her  white 
cap  and  offered  it  to  me,  making  signs  that  my  wooilru 
bonnet  was  incomplete  without  the  cap,  as    it  certainly 
was.     On  Brita's  delicately  calling  her  attention  to  the 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  375 

fact  that  her  cap  was  far  from  clean,  she  said  she  would 
go  home  and  wash  it  and  flute  it  afresh,  if  the  lady  would 
only  buy  it ;  and  three  hours  later  she  actually  appeared 
with  it  most  exquisitely  done  up,  and  not  at  all  dear  for 
the  half-dollar  she  asked  for  it.  After  buying  this  bon- 
net I  drove  back  to  the  hotel  with  it,  ate  my  lunch  in  the 
oleander-shaded  porch,  and  then  set  off  again  to  see  the 
cathedral.  This  proved  to  me  a  far  more  interesting  church 
than  Saint  Mary's,  though  the  guide-books  say  that  Saint 
Mar3''s  is  far  the  finer  church  of  the  two.  There  is  enough 
ugliness  in  both  of  them,  for  that  matter,  to  sink  them. 
But  in  the  cathedral  there  are  some  superb  bronzes  and 
brasses,  and  a  twisted  iron  railing  around  the  pulpit, 
which  is  so  marvellous  in  its  knottings  and  twistings  that 
a  legend  has  arisen  that  the  devil  made  it. 

"  How  very  much  they  seem  to  have  made  of  the  devil 
in  the  olden  time,  ma'am,  do  they  not?"  remarked  Brita, 
entirely  unconscious  of  the  fact  that  she  was  philosophiz- 
ing ;  "  wherever  we  have  been,  there  have  been  so  many 
things  named  in  his  honor !  " 

The  clock  in  this  church  has  not  been  deemed  worthy 
of  mention  in  the  guide-books ;  but  it  seemed  to  me  far 
more  wonderful  than  the  one  at  Saint  Mary's.  I  shall  never 
forget  it  as  long  as  I  live  ;  in  fact,  I  fear  I  shall  live  to 
wish  I  could.  The  centre  of  the  dial  plate  is  a  huge  face 
of  gilt,  with  gilt  rays  streaming  out  from  it ;  two  enormous 
eyes  in  this  turn  from  side  to  side  as  the  clock  ticks,  right, 
left,  right,  left,  so  far  each  time  that  it  is  a  squint, — a 
horrible,  malignant,  diabolical  squint.  It  seems  almost  ir- 
reverent even  to  tell  you  that  this  is  to  symbolize  the  never- 
closing  eye  of  God.  The  uncannj'  fascination  of  these 
rolling  eyes  cannot  be  described.  It  is  too  hideous  to  look 
at,  yet  you  cannot  look  away.  I  sat  spellbound  in  a  pew 
under  it  for  a  long  time.  On  the  right  hand  of  the  clock 
stands  a  figure  representing  the  "  Genius  of  Time."  This 
figure  holds  a  gold  hammer  in  its  hand,  and  strikes  the 
quarter-hours.  On  the  other  side  stands  Death,  —  a  naked 
skeleton,  —  with  an  hour-glass.  At  each  hour  he  turns  his 
hour-glass,  shakes  his  head,  and  with  a  hammer  in  his 
right  hand  strikes  the  hour.  I  heard  him  strike  "three," 
and  I  confess  a  superstitious  horror  affected  me.  The 
thought  of  a  congregation  of  people  sitting  Sunday  after 


376         NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMAN*. 

Sunday  looking  at  those  rolling  eyes,  and  seeing  that  skele- 
ton strike  the  hour  and  turn  his  hour-glass,  is  monstrous. 
Surely  there  was  an  epidemic  in  those  middle  ages  of  hideous 
and  fantastic  inventions.  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  it  has 
not  stamped  its  impress  on  the  physiognomy  of  the  German 
nation.  I  never  see  a  crowd  of  Germans  at  a  railway 
station  without  seeing  in  dozens  of  faces  resemblance  to 
ugly  gargoyles.  And  why  should  it  not  have  told  on  them  ? 
The  women  of  old  Greece  brought  forth  beautiful  sons  and 
daughters,  it  is  said,  because  they  looked  always  on  beau- 
tiful statues  and  pictures.  The  German  women  have  been 
for  a  thousand  years  looking  at  grotesque  and  leering  or 
coarse  and  malignant  gargoyles  carved  everywhere,  —  on 
the  gateways  of  their  cities,  in  their  churches,  on  the  very 
lintels  of  their  houses.  Why  should  not  the  German  face 
have  been  slowly  moulded  by  these  prenatal  influences? 

Above  this  malevolent  clock  was  a  huge  scaffold  beam, 
crossing  the  entire  width  of  the  church,  and  supporting 
four  huge  figures,  carved  with  some  skill ;  the  most  im- 
modest Adam  and  Eve  I  ever  beheld  ;  a  bishop  and  a  Saint 
John  and  a  Mary,  —  these  latter  kneeling  in  adoration  of 
a  crucifixion  above.  The  whole  combination  —  the  guihVy 
Adam  and  Eve,  the  pompous  bishop,  the  repulsive  cruci- 
fixion, the  puppet  clock  with  its  restless  eyes  and  skeleton, 
and  the  loud  tick-tock,  tick-tock,  of-  the  pendulum,  —  all 
made  up  a  scene  of  grotesqueness  and  irreverence  mingled 
with  superstition  and  devotion,  such  as  could  not  be  found 
anywhere  except  in  a  German  church  of  the  twelfth  century. 
It  was  a  relief  to  turn  from  it  and  go  into  the  little  chapel, 
where  stands  the  altar-piece  made  sacred  as  well  as  famous 
by  the  hands  of  that  tender  spiritual  painter,  Memling. 
These  altar-pieces  look  at  first  sight  so  much  like  decorated 
wardrobes  that  it  is  jarring.  I  wish  they  had  fashioned 
them  otherwise.  In  this  one,  for  instance,  it  is  almost  a 
pain  to  see  on  the  outside  doors  of  what  apparently  is  a  cup- 
board one  of  Memling' s  angels  (the  Gabriel)  and  the  Mary 
listening  to  his  message.  Throwing  these  doors  back,  you 
see  life-size  figures  of  four  saints,  —  John,  Jerome,  Blasius, 
and  uEgidius.  The  latter  is  a  grand  dark  figure,  with  a 
head  and  face  to  haunt  one.  Opening  these  doors  again, 
you  come1  to  the  last,  —  a  landscape  with  the  crucifixion  in 
the  foreground,  and  other  scenes  from  the  Passion  of  the 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  377 

Saviour.  This  is  less  distinctive!}-  Memling-like  ;  in  fact, 
the  only  ones  of  them  all  which  one  would  be  willing  to 
say  positively  no  man's  hand  but  Memling's  had  touched,  are 
the  two  tender  angels  in  white  on  the  outside  shutters. 

We  left  Lubeck  veiy  early  in  the  morning.  As  we  drove 
to  the  station,  the  milkmen  and  milkwomen  were  coming 
in,  in  their  pretty  carts,  full  of  white  wooden  firkins,  brass 
bound,  with  queer  long  spouts  out  on  one  side  ;  brass 
measures  of  different  sizes,  and  brass  dippers,  all  shining 
as  if  they  had  been  fresh  scoured  that  very  morning,  made 
the  carts  a  pretty  spectacle.  And  the  last  thing  of  all  which 
I  stopped  to  look  at  in  Lubeck  was  the  best  of  all,  —  an 
old  house  with  a  turreted  bay-window  on  the  corner,  and 
this  inscription  on  the  front  between  the  first  and  second 
stories  of  the  house  :  — 

"  North  and  south,  the  world  is  wide  : 
East  and  west,  home  is  best." 

It  was  in  Platt  Deutsch ;  and  oddly  enough,  the  servant 
of  the  house,  who  was  at  the  door,  did  not  know  what  it 
meant ;  and  the  first  two  men  we  asked  did  not  know 
what  it  meant,  —  stared  at  it  stupidly,  shrugged  their 
shoulders,  and  shook  their  heads.  It  was  a  lovely  motto 
for  a  house,  but  not  a  good  one  for  wanderers  away  from 
home  to  look  at.  It  brought  a  sudden  sense  of  homesick- 
ness, like  an  odor  of  a  flower  or  a  bar  of  music  which  has 
an  indissoluble  link  with  home. 

It  took  a  whole  day  to  go  from  Lubeck  to  Cassel,  but 
the  day  did  not  seem  long.  It  was  a  series  of  pictures, 
and  poor  Brita's  raptures  over  it  all  were  at  once  amus- 
ing and  pathetic.  As  soon  as  we  began  to  see  elevated 
ground,  she  became  excited.  "Oh,  oh,  ma'am,"  she 
exclaimed,  "talk  about  scenery  in  Denmark!  It  is  too 
flat.  I  am  so  used  to  the  flat  country,  the  least  hill  is 
beautiful."  "  Do  you  not  call  this  grand  ?  "  she  would  say, 
at  the  sight  of  a  hill  a  hundred  or  two  feet  high.  It  was 
a  good  lesson  of  the  meaning  of  the  word  relative. 
After  all,  one  can  hardly  conceive  what  it  must  be  to  live 
sixty-four  years  on  a  dead  level  of  flatness.  A  genuine 
mountain  would  probably  be  a  terror  to  a  person  who  had 
led  such  a  life.  Brita's  face,  vrhcn  I  told  her  that  I 
lived  at  the  foot  of  mountains  more  than  twelve  times 


378        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

as  high  as  any  she  had  seen,  was  a  study  for  in- 
credulity and  wonder.  I  think  she  thought  I  was  lying. 
It  was  the  hay  harvest.  All  the  way  from  Lubeck  to  Cas- 
sel  were  men  and  women,  all  hard  at  work  in  the  fields ; 
the  women  swung  their  scythes  as  well  as  the  men,  but 
looked  more  graceful  while  raking.  Some  wore  scarlet 
handkerchiefs  over  their  heads,  some  white  ;  all  had  bare 
legs  well  in  sight.  At  noon  we  saw  them  in  groups  on 
the  ground,  and  towards  night  walking  swiftly  along  the 
roads,  with  their  rakes  over  their  shoulders.  I  do  not 
understand  why  travellers  make  such  a  to-do  always  about 
the  way  women  work  in  the  fields  in  Germany.  I  am  sure 
they  are  far  less  to  be  pitied  than  the  women  who  work 
in  narrow,  dark,  foul  streets  of  cities ;  and  they  look  a 
thousand  times  healthier.  Our  road  lay  for  many  hours 
through  a  beautiful  farm  countr}" :  red  brick  houses  and 
barns  with  high  thatched  roofs,  three  quarters  of  the  whole 
building  being  thatched  roof;  great  sweeps  of  meadow, 
tracts  of  soft  pines,  kingdoms  of  beeches,  —  the  whole  forest 
looking  like  a  rich  yellow  brown  moss  in  the  distance,  and 
their  mottled  trunks  fairty  shining  out  in  the  cross  sun- 
beams, as  if  painted  ;  wide  stretches  of  brown  opens,  with 
worn  paths  leading  off  across  them  ;  hedges  everywhere,  and 
never  a  fence  or  a  wall ;  mountain-ash  trees,  scarlet  full ; 
horse-chestnuts  b}~  orchards ;  towns  every  few  minutes, 
and  our  train  halting  at  them  all  long  enough  for  the 
whole  town  to  make  up  their  minds  whether  they  could  go 
or  not,  pack  their  bags,  and  come  on  board  ;  bits  of  marsh, 
with  labyrinths  of  blue  water  in  and  out  in  it,  so  like 
tongues  of  the  sea  that,  forgetting  where  I  was,  I  said,  "  I 
wonder  if  that  is  fresh  water."  "It  must  be,  ma'am," 
replied  the  observant  Brita,  "inasmuch  as  the  white  lilies 
are  floating  beautiful  and  large  in  it." 

"Oh,"  she  suddenly  ejaculated,  "how  strange  it  was! 
Napoleon  III.  he  thought  he  would  get  a  good  bit  of  this 
beautiful  Germany  for  a  birthday  present,  and  be  in  Berlin 
on  his  birthday  ;  and  instead  of  that  the  Prussians  were  in 
Berlin  on  his  birthday." 

At  Liineburg  we  came  into  the  heather.  I  thought  I 
knew  heather,  but  I  was  to  discover  my  mistake.  All  the 
heather  of  my  life  heretofore  —  English,  Scotch,  Norwe- 
gian —  had  been  no  more  than  a  single  sprig  by  the  side  of 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  379 

this.  "The  dreary  Luneburg  Heath,"  the  discriminating 
Baedeker  calls  it.  The  man  who  wrote  that  phrase  must 
have  been  not  only  color-blind,  he  must  have  been  color- 
dead!  If  a  mountain  is  "dreary"  when  it  turns  purple 
pink  or  pink  purple  five  minutes  before  the  rising  sun  is 
going  to  flash  full  on  its  eastern  front,  then  the  Luneburg 
Heath  is  "dreary."  Acres  of  heather,  miles  of  heather; 
miles  after  miles,  hour  after  hour,  of  swift  railroad  riding, 
and  still  heather !  The  purple  and  the  pink  and  the 
browns  into  which  the  purple  and  pink  blended  and  melted, 
shifted  every  second,  and  deepened  and  paled  in  the  light 
and  the  shadow,  as  if  the  earth  itself  were  gentl}-  undulat- 
ing. Two  or  three  times,  down  vistas  among  the  low 
birches,  I  saw  men  up  to  their  knees  in  the  purple, 
apparently  reaping  it  with  a  sickle.  A  German  lady  in 
the  car  explained  that  the}'  cut  it  to  strew  in  the  sheep- 
stalls  for  the  sheep  to  sleep  on,  and  that  the  sheep  ate  it : 
bed,  bed-blanket,  and  breakfast  all  in  one !  Who  would 
not  be  a  sheep?  Here  and  there  were  little  pine  groves- 
in  this  heath ;  the  pine  and  the  birch  being  the  only  trees 
which  can  keep  any  footing  against  heather  when  it  sets 
out  to  usurp  a  territory,  and  even  they  cannot  grow  large 
or  freely.  Three  storks  rose  from  these  downs  as  we 
passed,  and  flew  slowly  away,  their  great  yellow  feet 
shining  as  if  they  had  on  gold  slippers. 

"  The  country  people  reckon  it  a  great  blessing,  ma'am, 
if  a  stork  will  build  its  nest  on  their  roof,"  said  Brita. 
"I  dare  say  it  is  thought  so  in  America  the  same."  k>  No, 
Brita,  we  have  no  storks  in  America,"  I  said.  "I  dare 
say  some  other  bird,  then,  you  hold  the  same,"  she  replied, 
in  a  tone  so  taking  it  for  granted  that  no  nation  of  people 
could  be  without  its  sacred  domestic  bird  that  I  was  fain 
to  fall  back  on  the  marten  as  our  nearest  approach  to  such 
a  bird ;  and  I  said  boastfully  that  we  built  houses  for  them 
in  our  yards,  that  they  never  built  on  roofs. 

At  Celle,  when  she  caught  sight  of  the  castle  where  poor 
Caroline  Matilda  died,  she  exclaimed,  "Oh,  ma'am,  that 
is  where  our  poor  queen  died.  It  was  the  nasty  Queen 
Dowager  did  it ;  it  was,  indeed,  ma'am.  And  the  king 
had  opened  the  ball  with  her  that  very  night  that  he  signed 
the  order  to  send  her  away.  They  took  her  in  her  ball- 
dress,  just  as  she  was.  If  they  had  waited  till  morning 


380        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

the  Danes  would  have  torn  her  out  of  the  wagon,  for  they 
worshipped  her.  She  screamed  for  her  baby,  and  they  just 
tossed  it  to  her  in  the  wagon ;  and  she  was  only  twenty." 

Pages  of  guide-book  could  not  have  so  emphasized  the 
tragedy  of  that  old  gray  castle  as  did  Brita's  words  and 
her  tearful  eyes,  and  "  nasty  old  Queen  Dowager."  I  sup- 
pose the  truth  will  never  be  known  about  that  poor  young 
queen  ;  history  whiffles  round  so  from  century  to  century 
that  it  seems  hardly  worth  while  to  mind  about  it.  At 
any  rate,  it  can't  matter  much  to  either  Caroline  or 
Struensee,  her  lover,  now. 

Cassel  at  nine  o'clock.  Friendly  faces  and  voices  and 
hands,  and  the  very  air  of  America  in  every  room.  It  was 
like  a  dream  ;  and  like  a  dream  vanished,  after  twenty-four 
hours  of  almost  unceasing  talk  and  reminiscence  and  in- 
terchange. "•  Blessings  brighten,"  even  more  than  "when 
they  take  their  flight,"  when  they  pause  in  their  flight  long 
enough  for  us  to  come  up  with  them  and  take  another  look 
at  them. 

Cassel  is  the  healthiest  town  in  all  German}7 ;  and  when 
3*ou  see  it  you  do  not  wonder.  High  and  dry  and  clear, 
and  several  hundred  feet  up  above  the  plain,  it  has  off-looks 
to  wide  horizons  in  all  directions.  To  the  east  and  south 
are  beautiful  curves  of  high  hills,  called  mountains  here ; 
thickly  wooded,  so  that  they  make  solid  spaces  of  color, 
dark  green  or  purple  or  blue,  according  to  the  time  calen- 
dar of  colors  of  mountains  at  a  distance.  (They  have 
their  time-tables  as  fixed  as  railway  trains,  and  much 
more  to  be  depended  on.)  There  is  no  town  in  Germany 
which  can  compare  with  Cassel  as  a  home  for  people  wish- 
ing to  educate  children  cheaply  and  well,  and  not  wishing 
to  live  in  the  fashions  and  ways  and  close  air  of  cities. 
It  has  a  picture-gallery  second  to  only  one  in  Germany  ; 
it  has  admirable  museums  of  all  sorts  ;  it  has  a  first-rate 
theatre;  good  masters  in  all  branches  of  study  are  to  be 
had  at  low  rates  :  living  is  cheap  and  comfortable  (for 
Germany).  The  water  is  good  ;  the  climate  also  (for  Ger- 
many) ;  and  last,  not  least,  the  surrounding  country  is  full 
of  picturesque  scenery,  —  woods,  high  hills,  streams  ;  just 
such  a  region  as  a  lover  of  Nature  finds  most  repaying 
and  enjo3"able.  In  the  matter  of  society,  also,  Cassel  is 
especially  favored,  having  taken  its  tone  from  the  days 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  381 

of  the  Electors,  and  keeping  still  much  of  the  old  fine 
breeding  of  culture  and  courtesy. 

It  is  a  misfortune  to  want  to  go  from  Cassel  to  Munich 
in  one  day.  It  can  be  done  ;  but  it  takes  fourteen  hours 
of  very  hard  work,  —  three  changes, — an  hour's  waiting 
at  one  place,  and  half  an  hour  at  another,  and  the  road  for 
the  last  half  of  the  day  so  rough  that  it  could  honestly  be 
compared  to  nothing  except  horseback  riding  over  bowl- 
ders at  a  rapid  rate.  This  is  from  Gemuuden  to  Munich  : 
if  there  is  any  other  way  of  getting  there,  I  think  nobody 
would  go  by  this  ;  so  I  infer  that  there  is  not.  You  must 
set  off,  also,  at  the  unearthly  hour  of  5  A.  M.,  — an  hour 
at  which  all  virtues  ooze  out  of  one ;  even  honesty  out  of 
cabmen,  as  I  found  at  Cassel.  when  a  man  to  whom  I  had 
paid  four  mai'ks  —  more  than  twice  the  regular  fare  — 
for  bringing  us  a  five  minutes'  distance  to  the  railway 
station,  absolutely  had  the  face  to  ask  three  marks  more. 
Never  did  I  so  long  for  a  command  of  the  German  tongue. 
I  only  hope  that  the  docile  Brita  translated  for  me 
literally  what  I  said,  as  I  handed  him  twelve  cents  more, 
with,  UI  gave  one  dollar  because  3-011  had  to  get  up  so 
early  in  the  morning.  You  know  very  well  that  even  half 
that  sum  is  more  than  the  price  at  ordinary  times.  I  will 
give  you  this  fifty  pfennigs  for  3'ourself,  and  not  another 
pfennig  do  you  get !  "  I  wish  that  the  man  that  invented 
the  word  pfennig  had  to  "do  a  pour  of  it  for  one 
tousand  year,"  as  dear  old  Dr.  Prohl  said  of  the  teapot 
that  would  not  pour  without  spilling.  I  think  it  is  the  test- 
word  of  the  German  language.  The  nearest  direction  I 
could  give  for  pronouncing  it  would  be :  fill  your  mouth 
with  hasty-pudding,  then  say  purr-f-f-f-f-f,  and  then  gulp 
the  pudding  and  choke  when  you  come  to  the  g,  — 
that  's  a  pfennig  /  and  the  idea  of  such  a  name  as 
that  for  a  contemptible  thing  of  which  it  takes  one  hun- 
dred to  make  a  quarter  of  a  dollar !  They  do  them  up  in 
big  nickel  pieces  too,  —  heavj-,  and  so  large  that  in  the 
dark  you  always  mistake  them  for  something  else.  Ten 
hundredths  of"  a  quarter  !  —  you  could  starve  with  your 
purse  loaded  down  with  them. 

In  the  station,  trudging  about  as  cheerily  as  if  they  were 
at  home,  was  a  poor  family,  — father,  mother,  and  five 
little  children,  —  evidently  about  to  emigrate.  Each  car- 


382        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

ried  a  big  bundle  ;  even  the  smallest  toddler  had  her  parcel 
tied  up  in  black  cloth  with  a  big  cord.  The  mother  carried 
the  biggest  bundle  of  all.  —  a  baby  done  up  in  a  bedquilt, 
thick  as  a  comforter ;  the  child's  head  was  pinned  in  tight 
as  its  feet,  —  not  one  breath  of  air  could  reach  it. 

"•  Going  to  America,  ma'am,"  said  Brita,  "  I  think  they 
must  be.  Oh,  ma'am,  there  was  five  hundred  sailed  in 
one  ship  for  America,  last  summer,  —  all  to  be  Mormons  ; 
and  the  big  fellow  that  took  them,  with  his  gold  spectacles, 
I  could  have  killed  him.  They'll  be  wretched  enough 
when  they  come  to  find  what  they've  done.  Brighain 
Young  's  dead,  but  there  must  be  somebody  in  his  place 
that 's  carrying  it  on  the  same.  They  'd  not  be  allowed  to 
stay  in  Denmark,  ma'am,  —  oh,  no,  they've  got  to  go  out 
of  the  country." 

All  day  again  we  journeyed  through  the  hay  harvest,  — 
the  same  picturesque  farm-houses,  with  their  high  roofs 
thatched  or  dark-tiled,  their  low  walls  white  or  red  or 
pink,  marked  off  into  odd-shaped  intervals  by  lattice-work 
of  wood  ;  no  fences,  no  walls  ;  only  the  coloring  to  mark 
divisions  of  crops.  Town  after  town  snugged  round  its 
church ;  the  churches  looked  like  hens  with  their  broods 
gathered  close  around  them,  just  ready  to  go  under  the 
wings.  We  had  been  told  that  we  need  not  change  cars  all 
the  way  to  Munich  ;  so,  of  course,  we  had  to  change  three 
times, — bundled  out  at  short  notice,  at  the  last  minute, 
to  gather  ourselves  up  as  we  might.  In  one  of  these  hur- 
ried changes  I  dropped  my  stylographic  pen.  Angry  as 
I  get  with  the  thing  when  I  am  writing  with  it,  my  very 
heart  was  wrung  with  sorrow  at  its  loss.  Without  much 
hope  of  ever  seeing  it  again,  I  telegraphed  for  it.  The 
station-master  who  did  the  telegraphing  was  profoundly 
impressed  by  Brita's  description  of  the  "  wonderful  in- 
strument" I  had  lost.  "  A  self- writing  pen," — she  called 
it.  I  only  wish  it  were  !  "  You  shall  hear  at  the  next 
station  if  it  has  been  found,"  he  said.  Sure  enough,  at  the 
very  next  station  the  guard  came  to  the  door.  "Found 
ami  will  be  sent,"  he  said  :  and  from  that  on  he  regarded 
me  with  a  sort  of  awe-stricken  look  whenever  he  entered 
the  car.  I  believe  he  considered  me  a  kind  of  female 
necromancer  from  America  !  and  no  wonder,  with  two  self- 
writing  pens  in  my  possession,  for  luckily  I  had  my 


ENCYCLICALS  OF  A   TRAVELLER.  383 

No.  2  in  my  travelling-bag  to  show  as  sample  of  what 
I  had  lost. 

At  Elm  we  came  into  a  fine  hill}'  region,  — hills  that  had 
to  be  tunnelled  or  climbed  over  by  zigzags  ;  between  them 
were  beautiful  glimpses  of  valleys  and  streams.  Brita 
was  nearly  beside  herself,  poor  soul !  Her  "  Oh's  "  became 
something  tragic.  "  Oh,  ma'am,  it  needs  no  judge  to  see 
that  God  has  been  here  !  "  she  cried.  "  We  must  think  on 
the  Building-Master  when  we  see  such  scenery  as  this." 

As  we  came  out  on  the  broader  plains,  the  coloring  of 
the  villages  grew  colder;  unlatticed  white  walls,  and  a 
colder  gray  to  the  roofs,  the  groups  of  houses  no  longer 
looked  like  crowds  of  furry  creatures  nestled  close  for  pro- 
tection. Some  rollicking  school-girls,  with  long  hair  flying, 
got  into  our  carriage,  and  chattered,  and  ate  cake,  and  gig- 
gled ;  the  cars  rocked  us  to  and  fro  on  our  seats  as  if  we  were 
in  a  saddle  on  a  run-away  horse  in  a  Colorado  canon.  All 
the  rough  roads  I  have  ever  been  on  have  been  smooth  glid- 
ing in  comparison  with  this.  At  nine  o'clock,  Munich,  and 
a  note  from  the  dear  old  "Fraulein"to  say  that  her 
house  was  full,  but  she  had  rooms  engaged  for  me  near 
by.  The  next  day  I  went  to  see  her,  and  found  her  the 
same  old  inimitable  dear  as  ever,  — the  eyes  and  the  smile 
not  a  day  older,  and  the  drollery  and  the  mimicry  all 
there  ;  but,  alas  !  old  age  has  come  creeping  too  close  not 
to  hurt  in  some  ways,  and  an  ugly  rheumatism  prevents 
her  from  walking  and  gives  her  much  pain.  I  had  hoped 
she  could  go  to  Oberammergau  with  me ;  but  it  is  out  of 
the  question.  At  night  she  sent  over  to  me  the  loveliest 
basket  of  roses  and  forget-me-nots  and  mignonette,  with 
a  card,  "  Good-night,  my  dear  lad}*,  —  I  kiss  you  ;  "  and  I 
am  not  too  proud  to  confess  that  I  read  it  with  tears  in 
my  eyes.  The  dear,  faithful,  loving  soul ! 


THE   VILLAGE  OF  OBERAMMERGAU. 

MOUNTAINS  and  valleys  and  rivers  are  in  league  with  the 
sun  and  summer —  and,  for  that  matter,  with  winter  too  — 
to  do  their  best  in  the  Bavarian  Highlands.  Lofty  ranges, 
ever  green  at  base,  ever  white  at  top,  are  there  tied  with 
luminous  bands  of  meadow  into  knots  and  loops,  and 
knots  and  loops  again,  tightening  and  loosening,  opening 
and  shutting  in  labyrinths,  of  which  only  rivers  know  the 
secret  and  no  man  can  speak  the  charm.  Villages  which 
find  place  in  lands  like  these  take  rank  and  relation  at 
once  with  the  divine  organic  architecture  already  builded  ; 
seem  to  become  a  part  of  Nature  ;  appear  to  have  existed 
as  long  as  the  hills  or  the  streams,  and  to  have  the  same 
surety  of  continuance.  How  much  this  natural  correlation 
may  have  had  to  do  with  the  long,  unchanging  simplicities 
of  peoples  born  and  bred  in  these  mountain  haunts,  it 
would  be  worth  while  to  analyze.  Certain  it  is  that  in  all 
peasantry  of  the  hill  countries  in  Europe,  there  are  to  be 
seen  traits  of  countenance  and  demeanor,  —  peculiarities  of 
bodj*,  habits,  customs,  and  beliefs  which  are  indigenous 
and  lasting,  like  plants  and  rocks.  Mere  lapse  of  time 
hardly  touches  them  ;  they  have  defied  many  centuries ; 
only  now  in  the  mad  restlessness  of  progress  of  this  the 
nineteenth  do  they  begin  to  falter.  But  they  have  excuse 
when  Alps  have  come  to  be  tunnelled  and  glaciers  are 
melted  and  measured. 

Best  known  of  all  the  villages  that  have  had  the  good 
fortune  to  be  born  in  the  Bavarian  Highlands  is  Ober- 
ammergau,  the  town  of  the  famous  Passion  Play.  But 
for  the  Passion  Play  the  great  world  had  never  found 
Oberammergau  out,  perhaps ;  yet  it  might  well  be  sought 
for  itself.  It  lies  2,600  feet  above  the  sea,  at  the  head  of 


THE   VILLAGE  OF  OBERAMMERGAU.          385 

a  long  stretch  of  meadow  lands,  which  the  River  Aramer 
keeps  green  for  half  the  year,  —  at  the  head  of  these,  and 
in  the  gateway  of  one  of  the  most  beautiful  walled  valleys 
of  the  Alps.  The  Ammer  is  at  once  its  friend  and  foe  ;  in 
summer  a  friend,  but  malicious  in  spring,  rising  suddenly 
after  great  rains  or  thaws,  and  filling  the  valley  with  a 
swift  sea,  by  which  everything  is  in  danger  of  being  swept 
away.  In  1769  it  tore  through  the  village  with  a  flood 
like  a  tidal  wave,  and  left  only  twelve  houses  standing. 

High  up  on  one  of  the  mountain-sides,  northeast  of  the 
village,  is  a  tin}'  spot  of  greensward,  near  the  course  of  one 
of  the  mountain  torrents  which  swell  the  Ainmer.  This 
green  spot  is  the  Oberammergauers'  safety-gauge.  So 
long  as  that  is  green  and  clear  the  valley  will  not  be 
flooded ;  as  soon  as  the  water  is  seen  shining  over  that 
spot  it  is  certain  that  floods  will  be  on  in  less  than  an 
hour,  and  the  whole  village  is  astir  to  forestall  the  danger. 
The  high  peaks,  also,  which  stand  on  either  side  the  town, 
are  friend  and  foe  alternately.  White  with  snow  till  July, 
they  keep  stores  of  a  grateful  coolness  for  summer  heats  ; 
but  in  winter  the  sun  cannot  climb  above  them  till  nine 
o'clock,  and  is  lost  in  their  fastnesses  again  at  one.  Ter- 
rible hail-storms  sometimes  whirl  down  from  their  sum- 
mits. On  the  10th  of  May,  1774,  there  were  three  of  these 
hail-storms  in  one  day,  which  killed  ever}-  green  blade  and 
leaf  in  the  fields.  One  month  later,  just  as  vegetation  had 
fairly  started  again,  came  another  avalanche  of  hail,  and 
killed  everything  a  second  time.  On  the  13th  of  June, 
1771,  snow  lay  so  deep  that  men  drove  in  sledges  through 
the  valley.  This  was  a  year  never  to  be  forgotten.  In 
1744  there  was  a  storm  of  rain,  thunder,  and  lightning,  in 
which  the  electric  fire  shot  down  like  javelins  into  the 
town,  set  a  score  of  houses  on  fire,  and  destroyed  the 
church.  One  had  need  of  goodly  devotion  to  keep  a  com- 
posed mind  and  contented  spirit  in  a  dwelling-place  sur- 
rounded by  such  dangers.  The  very  elements,  however, 
it  seems,  are  becoming  tamed  by  the  inroads  of  civilization  ; 
for  it  is  more  than  fifty  years  since  Oberammergau  has 
seen  such  hail  or  such  lightning. 

The  village  is,  like  all  Tyrolean  villages,  built  without 
apparent  plan,  —  no  two  houses  on  a  line,  no  two  streets 
at  right  angles,  everybody's  house  slanting  across  or 
"25 


386        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

against  somebody  else's  house,  the  confusion  really  attain- 
ing the  dignity  of  a  fine  art.  If  a  child  were  to  set  out  a 
toy  village  on  the  floor,  decide  hastily  to  put  it  back  in  its 
box,  sweep  it  all  together  between  his  two  hands,  then 
change  his  mind,  and  let  the  houses  remain  exactly  as  they 
had  fallen,  with  no  change  except  to  set  them  right  side 
up,  I  think  it  would  make  a  good  map  of  Oberammergau. 
The  houses  are  low,  white-plastered,  or  else  left  of  the 
natural  color  of  the  wood,  which,  as  it  grows  old,  is  of  a 
rich  dark  brown.  The  roofs  project  far  over  the  eaves,  and 
are  held  down  by  rows  of  heavy  stones  to  keep  them  from 
blowing  off  in  wind-storms.  Tiny  open-work  balconies  are 
twined  in  and  out  capriciously,  sometimes  filled  with  gay 
flowers,  sometimes  with  hay  and  dried  herbs,  sometimes 
with  the  firewood  for  winter.  Oberammergau  knows  in 
such  matters  no  law  but  each  man's  pleasure.  It  is  at 
each  man's  pleasure,  also,  where  he  will  keep  his  manure- 
heap  ;  and  usually  he  elects  to  keep  it  close  to  the  street, 
joining  his  barn  or  his  house,  or  his  neighbor's  barn  or 
house,  at  convenience.  Except  that  there  are  many  small 
sluices  and  rivulets  and  canals  of  spring  water  wandering 
about  the  village  to  carry  off  the  liquidation,  this  would  be 
intolerable,  and  surely  would  create  pestilences.  As  it  is, 
the  odors  are  abominable,  and  are  a  perpetual  drawback 
to  the  delight  one  would  otherwise  take  in  the  picturesque 
little  place. 

There  are  many  minute  gardens  and  bits  of  orchard  of 
all  possible  shapes,  —  as  many  and  as  many-sided  as  the 
figures  in  the  first  pages  of  Euclid.  I  saw  one,  certainly 
not  containing  more  than  eight  square  feet,  which  was 
seven-sided,  fenced  and  joined  to  two  houses.  Purple 
phlox,  dahlias,  and  lilacs  are  the  favorite  out-door  flowers. 
Of  these  there  were  clumps  and  beds  which  might  have  been 
transported  from  New  England.  In  the  balconies  and 
window-sills  were  scarlet  geranium,  white  alyssum,  and 
pansies. 

The  most  striking  natural  feature  of  Oberammergau  is 
the  great  mountain-peak  to  the  southwest,  called  the 
Kofel.  This  is  a  bare,  rocky  peak  of  singularly  bold  con- 
tour. On  its  summit  is  set  a  large  cross,  which  stands 
out  always  against  the  sky  with  a  clearness  almost  solemn. 
The  people  regard  this  Kofel  as  the  guardian  angel  of  their 


THE   VILLAGE   OF  OBEHAMMERGAU.  387 

village  ;  and  it  is  said  that  the  reply  was  once  made  to  per- 
sons who  were  urging  the  Passion  Play  actors  to  perform 
their  pla}-  in  England  or  America,  — 

•  •  We  would  do  so  if  it  were  possible  ;  but  to  do  that,  it 
would  be  needful  to  take  the  entire  village  and  our  guardian 
spirit,  the  Kofel." 

I  arrived  in  Oberammergau  on  a  Wednesda}-,  and  counted 
on  finding  myself  much  welcomed,  three  days  in  advance 
of  the  day  of  the  play.  Never  was  a  greater  mistake.  A 
country  cousin  coming  uninvited  to  make  a  visit  in  the 
middle  of  a  busy  housewife's  spring  house-cleaning  would 
be  as  welcome.  As  I  drove  into  the  village  the  expression 
of  things  gave  me  alarm.  Every  fence,  post,  roof,  bush, 
had  sheets,  pillow-cases,  or  towels  drying  on  it ;  the  porches 
and  grass-plots  were  strewn  with  pillows  and  mattresses ; 
a  general  fumigation  and  purification  of  a'  quarantined 
town  could  not  have  produced  a  greater  look  of  being 
turned  wrong  side  out.  This  is  what  the  cleanly  Ober- 
ammergau women  do  ever}*  week  during  the  Passion  Play 
season.  It  takes  all  the  time  intervening  between  the 
weekty  representations  of  the  play  to  make  ready  their 
bedrooms  and  beds. 

I  was  destined  to  greater  alarms  and  surprises,  however. 
The  Frau  Rutz,  to  whom  I  had  written  for  lodgings,  and  to 
whose  house  I  drove  all  confident,  had  never  heard  of  my 
name.  It  became  instantaneously  apparent  to  me  that  I 
probably  represented  to  her  mind  perhaps  the  eleven  hun- 
dred and  thirty-seventh  person  who  had  stopped  at  her  door 
with  the  same  expectation.  Half  of  her  house  was  being 
re-roofed,  "  to  be  done  by  Sunday  ;  "  all  her  bed-linen  was 
damp  in  baskets  in  the  kitchen  ;  and  she  and  her  sister 
were  even  then  ironing  for  dear  life  to  be  done  in  time  to 
begin  baking  and  brewing  on  the  next  day.  Evidently 
taking  time  by  the  forelock  was  a  good  way  to  come  to  a 
dead-lock  in  Oberammergau.  To  house  after  house  I 
drove,  —  to  Frau  Zwink's  bird-cage,  perched  on  the  brink 
of  a  narrow  canal,  and  half  over  it,  it  seemed.  Just  be- 
fore me  stood  a  post-carriage,  at  Frau  Zwink's  door :  and 
as  I  stepped  out  two  English  ladies  with  bags,  bundles, 
and  umbrellas  disappeared  within  Frau  Zwink's  door,  hav- 
ing secured  the  only  two  available  perches  in  the  cage. 
The  Frau  came  running  with  urgent  solicitations  that  I 


388        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

should  examine  a  closet  she  had,  which  she  thought  might 
answer. 

"Oh,  is  she  the  lady  of  the  house,  and  she  barefoot?" 
exclaimed  my  Danish  maid,  aghast  at  the  spectacle.  Yet 
I  afterwards  heard  that  the  Frau  Zwink's  was  one  of  the 
notably  comfortable  lodging-places  in  the  town.  In  another 
house  were  shown  to  us  two  small  dark  rooms,  to  reach 
which  one  must  climb  a  ladder  out  of  the  common  living- 
room  of  the  family.  From  house  after  house  came  the  re- 
sponse, "  No  rooms ;  all  promised  for  Saturday."  At 
intervals  I  drove  back  to  Frau  Rutz's  for  further  sugges- 
tions. At  last  she  became  graduallj-  impressed  with  a 
sense  of  responsibility  for  our  fortunes  ;  and  the  mystery 
of  her  knowing  nothing  about  m}-  letter  was  cleared  up. 
Her  nephew  had  charge  of  the  correspondence  ;  she  never 
saw  the  letters ;  he  had  not  yet  had  time  to  answer  one 
half  of  the  letters  he  had  received.  Most  probably  my 
letter  might  be  in  his  pocket  now.  Friendship  grew  up 
between  my  heart  and  the  heart  of  the  Frau  Rutz  as  we 
talked.  Who  shah1  fathom  or  sound  these  bonds  which 
create  themselves  so  quickly  with  one,  so  slowly  with 
another?  She  was  an  Oberammergau  peasant,  who  knew 
no  word  of  my  tongue ;  I  a  woman  of  another  race,  life, 
plane,  who  could  not  speak  one  word  she  could  compre- 
hend, and  our  interpreter  was  only  a  servant;  but  I  think 
I  do  not  exaggerate  when  I  sa}*  that  the  Frau  and  I  be- 
came friends.  I  know  I  am  hers ;  and  I  think  if  I  were 
in  Oberammergau  in  need,  I  should  find  that  she  was 
mine. 

By  some  unexplained  accident  (if  there  be  such  things) 
the  best  room  in  all  Oberammergau  was  still  left  free, 
—  a  great  sunny  room,  with  a  south  window  and  east 
windows,  a  white  porcelain  stove,  an  old-fashioned  spin- 
net,  a  glass-doored  corner-cupboard  full  of  trinkets,  old- 
ifashioned  looking-glasses,  tables,  and  two  good  beds ; 
and  of  this  I  took  possession  in  incredulous  haste.  It  was 
in  the  house  of  George  Lang,  merchant,  the  richest  man 
in  the  town.  The  history  of  the  family  of  which  he  is  now 
the  leading  representative  is  identified  with  the  fortunes  of 
Oberammergau  for  a  century  past.  It  is  an  odd  thing  that 
this  little  village  should  have  had  its  line  of  merchant 
princes,  —  a  line  dating  back  a  hundred  years,  marked  by 


THE    VILLAGE   OF  OBERAMMERGAU.          389 

the  same  curious  points  of  heredity  as  that  of  the  Vander- 
bilts  or  Astors  in  America,  and  the  Rothschilds  in  Europe  ; 
men  as  shrewd,  sharp,  foreseeing,  fore-planning,  and  ex- 
ecutive in  their  smaller  way,  and  perhaps  as  arbitrary  in 
their  monopolies,  as  some  of  our  millionnaires. 

In  1765  there  lived  in  the  service  of  the  monastery  at 
Ettal  a  man  named  Joseph  Lang.  He  was  a  trusted  man, 
a  sort  of  steward  and  general  supervisor.  When  the  mon- 
astery was  suppressed,  Joseph  Lang's  occupation  was  gone. 
He  was  a  handy  man,  both  with  tools  and  with  colors,  and 
wandering  down  to  Oberammergau,  halted  for  a  little  to 
see  if  he  could  work  himself  in  with  the  industry  already 
established  there  of  toy-making.  At  first  he  made  simply 
frames,  and  of  the  plainest  sort ;  soon  —  perhaps  from  a 
reverent  bias  for  still  ministering  to  the  glory  of  the  church, 
but  probably  quite  as  much  from  his  trader's  perception 
of  the  value  of  an  assured  market  —  he  began  to  paint 
wooden  figures  of  saints,  apostles,  Holy  Virgins,  and 
Christs.  These  figures  at  first  he  imported  from  the  Tyrol, 
painted  them,  and  sent  them  back  there  to  be  sold.  Before 
long  he  had  a  large  majoritj'  of  the  Oberammergau  villagers 
working  under  his  direction  as  both  carvers  and  colorers 
in  this  business,  —  a  great  enlargement  of  their  previous 
trade  of  mere  toy-making. 

This  man  had  eleven  sons.  Ten  of  them  were  carvers 
in  wood,  one  was  a  painter  and  gilder.  All  these  sons 
worked  together  in  the  continuing  and  building  up  of  their 
father's  business.  One  of  them,  George  Lang,  perceiving 
the  advantage  of  widening  business  connections,  struck 
out  for  the  world  at  large,  established  agencies  for  his 
house  in  many  countries,  chiefly  in  Russia,  and  came  home 
to  die.  He  had  six  sons  and  four  or  five  daughters,  it  is 
not  certainly  known  which  ;  for,  as  the  present  George 
Lang  said,  telling  this  genealogical  history  in  his  delight- 
ful English:  "The  archives  went  up  in  fire  once,  so  they 
did  not  know  exactly."  All  six  of  these  sons  followed 
the  trades  of  carving,  painting,  and  gilding.  One  of  them, 
the  youngest,  Johann,  continued  the  business,  succeeding 
to  his  father's  position  in  1824.  He  was  perhaps  the 
cleverest  man  of  the  line.  He  went  from  country  to 
country,  all  over  Europe,  and  had  his  agents  in  America, 
England,  Australia,  Russi.-i.  Ik-  was  on  terms  of  acquain- 


390         NORWAY,  DENMARK,   AND   GERMANY. 

tance  with  people  in  high  position  eve^-where,  and  was 
sometimes  called  "The  King  of  Oberaminergau."  Again 
and  again  the  villagers  wished  to  make  him  burgomaster  or 
magistrate,  but  he  would  not  accept  the  position.  Never- 
theless it  finalh'  came  to  pass  that  all  legal  writings  of 
the  town,  leases,  conveyances,  etc.,  made,  were  signed  by 
his  name  as  well  as  by  the  names  of  the  recognized  officials. 
First,  "the  magistracy  of  Oberammergan,"  then,  "Johann 
Lang,  Agent,"  as  he  persisted  in  calling  himself,  ran  in 
the  records  of  the  parties  to  transactions  in  Oberammergau 
at  that  time. 

In  1847  the  village  began  to  be  in  great  trouble.  A  large 
part  of  it  was  burned  ;  sickness  swept  it ;  whole  families 
were  homeless,  or  without  father  or  brother  to  support 
them.  Now  shone  out  the  virtues  of  this  "King  of  Ober- 
ammergau," who  would  not  be  its  burgomaster.  He 
supported  the  village  :  to  those  who  could  work  he  gave 
work,  whether  the  work  had  present  value  to  him  or  not ; 
to  those  who  could  not  work  he  gave  food,  shelter,  clothes. 
He  was  a  rich  man  in  1847,  when  the  troubles  began.  In 
1849  he  was  poor,  simply  from  his  lavish  giving.  He  had 
only  two  sons,  to  both  of  whom  he  gave  an  education  in 
the  law.  Thus  the  spell  of  the  succession  of  the  craft  of 
wood-workers  was  broken.  No  doubt  ambition  had  entered 
into  the  heart  of  the  "  King  of  Oberammergau"  to  place  his 
sons  higher  in  the  social  scale  than  any  success  in  mere 
trade  could  lift  them.  One  of  these  sons  is  now  burgo- 
master of  the  village ;  he  is  better  known  to  the  outside 
world  as  the  Caiaphas  of  the  Passion  Play.  To  one  know- 
ing the  antecedents  of  his  house,  the  dramatic  power  with 
which  he  assumes  and  renders  the  Jewish  High-Priest's 
haughty  scorn,  impatience  of  opposition,  contempt  for  the 
Nazarene,  will  be  seen  to  have  a  basis  in  his  own  pride  of 
birth  and  inherited  habit  of  authority. 

The  other  son,  having  been  only  moderately  successful 
in  making  his  way  in  the  world  as  a  lawyer,  returned  to 
Oberammergau,  succeeded  to  his  father's  business  in  1856, 
but  lived  onlv  a  short  time,  dying  in  1859.  He  left  a  widow 
and  six  children,  —  three  sons  and  three  daughters.  For  a 
time  the  widow  and  a  sister-in-law  carried  on  the  business. 
As  the  sons  grew  up,  two  of  them  gradually  assumed  more 
and  more  the  lead  in  affairs,  and  now  bid  fair  to  revive  and 


THE    VILLAGE  OF  OBERAMMERGAU.          391 

restore  the  old  traditions  of  the  family  power  and  success. 
One  of  them  is  in  charge  of  a  branch  of  the  business  in 
England,  the  other  in  Oberamrnergau.  The  third  son  is  an 
officer  in  the  Bavarian  army.  The  aunt  is  still  the  ac- 
countant and  manager  of  the  house,  and  the  young  people 
evidently  defer  to  her  advice  and  authority. 

The  daughters  have  been  educated  in  Munich  and  at 
convents,  and  are  gentle,  pleasing,  refined  voung  women. 
At  the  time  of  the  Passion  Play  in  1880  they  "did  the  honors 
of  their  house  to  hundreds  of  strangers,  who  were  at  once 
bewildered  and  delighted  to  find,  standing  behind  their 
chairs  at  dinner,  young  women  speaking  both  English  and 
French,  and  as  courteous!}'  attentive  to  their  guests'  every 
wish  as  if  they  had  been  extending  the  hospitality  of  the 
"King  of  Oberammergau,"  a  half-century  back. 

Their  house  is  in  itself  a  record.  It  stands  fronting  an 
irregular  open,  where  five  straggling  roadways  meet,  mak- 
ing common  centre  of  a  big  spring,  from  which  water  runs 
ceaselessly  day  and  night  into  three  large  tanks.  The 
house  thus  commands  the  village,  and  it  would  seem  no 
less  than  natural  that  all  post  and  postal  service  should 
centre  in  it.  It  is  the  largest  and  far  the  best  house  in 
the  place.  Its  two  huge  carved  doors  stand  wide  open 
from  morning  till  night,  like  those  of  an  inn.  On  the 
right-hand  side  of  the  hall  is  the  post-office,  combined 
with  which  is  the  usual  universal  shop  of  a  country  village, 
holding  everything  conceivable,  from  a  Norway  dried  her- 
ring down  to  French  sewing-silk.  On  the  left-hand  side 
are  the  warerooms  of  wood-carvings :  the  first  two  rooms 
for  their  sale  ;  behind  these,  rooms  for  storing  and  for 
packing  the  goods,  to  send  away ;  there  are  four  of  these 
rooms,  and  their  piled-up  cases  bear  testimony  to  the 
extent  of  the  business  they  represent. 

A  broad,  dark,  winding  stairway  leads  up  to  the  second 
floor.  Here  are  the  living-rooms  of  the  family  ;  spacious, 
sunny,  comfortable.  At  the  farther  end  of  this  hall  a  great 
iron  door  leads  into  the  baimn  ;  whenever  it  is  opened,  a 
whiff  of  the  odor  of  hay  sweeps  through  ;  and  to  put  out 
your  head  from  your  chamber-door  of  a  morning,  and 
looking  down  the  hall,  to  see  straight  into  a  big  haymow, 
is  an  odd  experience  the  first  time  it  happens.  The  house 
faces  southeast,  and  has  a  dozen  windows,  all  the  time 


392        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

blazing  in  sunlight,  —  a  goodly  thing  in  Oberammergati, 
where  shadow  and  shade  mean  reeking  damp  and  chill. 
On  the  south  side  of  the  house  is  an  old  garden,  chiefty 
apple-orchard  ;  under  these  trees,  in  sunn}'  weather,  the 
family  take  their  meals,  and  at  the  time  of  the  Passion 
Play  more  than  fifty  people  often  sat  down  at  outdoor 
tables  there.  These  trees  were  like  one  great  aviary,  so 
full  were  they  of  little  sparrow-like  birds,  with  breasts  of 
cinnamon-brown  color,  and  black  crests  on  their  heads. 
They  chatted  and  chattered  like  magpies,  and  I  hardly  ever 
knew  them  to  be  quiet  except  for  a  few  minutes  every 
morning,  when,  at  half-past  five,  the  village  herd  of  fifty 
cows  went  by,  each  cow  with  a  bell  at  her  neck ;  and  all 
fifty  bells  half  ringing,  half  tolling,  a  broken,  drowsy, 
sleepy,  delicious  chime,  as  if  some  old  sacristan,  but  half 
awake,  was  trying  to  ring  a  peal.  At  the  first  note  of 
this  the  birds  always  stopped,  —  half  envious,  I  fancied. 
As  the  chime  died  away,  they  broke  out  again  as  shrill  as 
ever,  and  even  the  sunrise  did  not  interrupt  them. 

The  open  square  in  front  of  the  house  is  a  perpetual 
stage  of  tableaux.  The  people  come  and  go,  and  linger 
there  around  the  great  water-tanks  as  at  a  sort  of  Bethesda, 
sunk  to  profaner  uses  of  eveiy-day  cleansing.  The  com- 
monest labors  become  picturesque  performed  in  open  air, 
with  a  background  of  mountains,  by  men  and  women  with 
bare  heads  and  bare  legs  and  feet.  Whenever  I  looked 
out  of  my  windows  I  saw  a  picture  worth  painting.  For 
instance,  a  woman  washing  her  windows  in  the  tanks, 
holding  each  window  under  the  running  stream,  tipping  it 
and  turning  it  so  quickly  in  the  sunshine  that  the  waters 
gliding  off  it  took  millions  of  prismatic  hues,  till  she 
seemed  to  be  scrubbing  with  rainbows ;  another  with 
two  tubs  full  of  clothes,  which  she  had  brought  there  to 
wash,  her  petticoat  tucked  up  to  her  knees,  her  arms  bare  to 
the  shoulder,  a  bright  red  handkerchief  knotted  round  her 
head,  and  her  eyes  flashing  as  she  beat  and  lifted,  wring- 
ing and  tossing  the  clothes,  and  flinging  out  a  sharp  or  a 
laughing  word  to  every  passer ;  another  coming  home  at 
night  with  a  big  bundle  of  green  grass  under  one  arm,  her 
rake  over  her  shoulder,  a  free,  open  glance,  and  a  smile  and 
a  bow  to  a  gay  postilion  watering  his  horses  ;  another  who 
had  brought,  apparently,  her  whole  stock  of  kitchen  utensils 


THE   VILLAGE  OF  OBERAMMERGAU.          393 

there  to  be  made  clean,  — jugs  and  crocks,  and  brass  pans. 
How  they  glittered  as  she  splashed  them  in  and  out !  She 
did  not  wipe  them,  on!}-  set  them  down  on  the  ground  to 
dry.  which  seemed  likely  to  leave  them  but  half  clean,  after 
all.  Then  there  came  a  dashing  young  fellow  from  the 
Tyrol,  with  three  kinds  of  feathers  "in  his  green  hat,  short 
brown  breeches,  bare  knees,  gray  yarn  stockings  with  a 
pattern  of  green  wreath  knit  in  at  the  top,  a  happy-go- 
lucky  look  on  his  face,  stooping  down  to  take  a  mouthful  of 
the  swift-running  water  from  the  spout,  and  getting  well 
splashed  by  missing  aim  with  his  mouth,  to  the  uproarious 
delight  of  two  women  just  coming  in  from  their  hay-making 
in  the  meadows,  one  of  them  balancing  a  hay-rake  and 
pitchfork  on  her  shoulder  with  one  hand,  and  with  the 
other  holding  her  dark-blue  petticoat  carefully  gathei'ed  up 
in  front,  full  of  ha}" ;  the  other  drawing  behind  her  (not 
wheeling  it)  a  low,  scoop-shaped  wheelbarrow  full  of  green 
grass  and  clover,  —  these  are  a  few  of  any  day's  pictures. 
And  thither  came  ever}-  da}-  Issa  Kattan,  from  Bethlehem 
of  JudiEa, — a  brown-skinned,  deer-eyed  Syrian,  who  had 
come  all  the  way  from  the  Holy  Land  to  offer  to  the 
Passion  Play  pilgrims  mother-of-pearl  trinkets  wrought  in 
Jerusalem ;  rosaries  of  pearl,  of  olive-wood,  of  seeds, 
scarlet,  yellow,  and  black,  wonderfully  smooth,  hard,  and 
shining.  He  wore  a  brilliant  red  fez,  and  told  his  gentle 
lies  in  a  voice  as  soft  as  the  murmuring  of  wind  in  pines. 
He  carried  his  wares  in  a  small  tray,  hung,  like  a  muff,  by 
a  cord  round  his  neck,  the  rosaries  and  some  strips  of 
bright  stuffs  hanging  down  at  each  side  and  swinging  back 
and  forth  in  time  to  his  slow  tread.  Issa  paced  the  streets 
patiently  from  morn  till  night,  but  took  good  care  to  be  at 
this  watering-place  many  times  in  the  course  of  the  day, 
chiefly  at  the  morning,  and  when  the  laborers  were  coming 
home  at  sunset. 

Another  vender,  as  industrious  as  he,  but  less  pictur- 
esque, also  haunted  the  spot :  a  man  who,  knowing  how 
dusty  the  Passion  Play  pilgrims  would  be,  had  brought 
brushes  to  sell, — brushes  big,  little,  round,  square,  thick, 
thin,  long,  short,  cheap,  dear,  good,  bad,  and  indifferent: 
no  brush  ever  made  that  was  not  to  be  found  hanging  on 
that  man's  body,  if  you  turned  him  round  times  enough. 
That  was  the  way  he  carried  his  wares,  —  in  tiers,  strings, 


894        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

strata,  all  tied  together  and  on  himself  in  some  inexpli- 
cable way.  One  would  think  he  must  have  slipped  him- 
self into  a  dozen  "  eat's-cradles  "  of  twine  to  begin  with, 
and  then  had  the  brushes  netted  in  and  out  on  this  foun- 
dation. All  that  remained  to  be  seen  of  him  was  his  head, 
above  this  bristling  ball,  and  his  feet  shuffling  below.  To 
cap  the  climax  of  his  grotesqueness,  he  wore  on  his  back 
a  wooden  box,  shaped  like  an  Indian  pappoose  frame  ;  and 
in  this  stood  three  or  four  lofty  long-handled  brushes  for 
sweeping,  which  rose  far  above  his  head. 

Another  peasant  woman  —  a  hay-maker  —  I  remember, 
who  came  one  night ;  never  again,  though  I  watched  long- 
ingly for  her,  or  one  like  her.  She  wore  a  petticoat  of 
umber-brown,  a  white  blouse,  a  blue  apron,  a  pink-and- 
white  handkerchief  over  her  head,  pinned  under  her  chin ; 
under  one  arm  she  carried  a  big  bunch  of  tall  green 
grasses,  with  the  tasselled  heads  hanging  loose  far  behind 
her.  On  the  other  shoulder  rested  her  pitchfork,  and  in 
the  hand  that  poised  the  pitchfork  she  held  a  bunch  of 
dahlias,  red,  white,  and  j-ellow. 

But  the  daintiest  and  most  memorable  figure  of  all  that 
flitted  or  tarried  here,  was  a  little  brown-eyed,  golden- 
haired  maiden,  not  more  than  three  years  old.  She  lived 
near  by,  and  often  ran  away  from  home.  I  saw  her  some- 
times led  by  the  hand,  but  oftenest  without  guide  or  pro- 
tector, —  never  alone,  however ;  for,  rain  or  shine,  early  or 
late,  she  carried  always  in  her  arms  a  huge  puppet,  with  a 
face  bigger  than  her  own.  It  wore  a  shawl  and  a  knit 
hood,  the  child  herself  being  always  bareheaded.  It  was 
some  time  before  I  could  fathom  the  mystery  of  this  doll, 
which  seemed  shapeless  }-et  bulky,  and  heavier  than  the 
child  could  well  lift,  though  she  tugged  at  it  faithfully  and 
with  an  expression  of  care,  as  we  often  see  poor  babies  in 
cities  lugging  about  babies  a  little  younger  than  them- 
'  selves.  At  last  I  caught  the  puppet  out  one  day  without 
its  shawl,  and  the  mystery  was  revealed.  It  was  a  milli- 
ner's bonnet-block,  on  which  a  face  had  been  painted.  No 
wonder  it  seemed  heavy  and  shapeless  ;  below  the  face 
was  nothing  but  a  rough  base  of  wood.  It  appeared  that 
as  soon  as  the  thing  was  given  to  the  child,  she  conceived 
for  it  a  most  inconvenient  and  unmanageable  affection,  — 
would  go  nowhere  without  it,  would  not  go  to  sleep  with- 


THE   VILLAGE   OF  OBERAMMERGAU.          395 

out  it,  could  hardly  be  induced  to  put  it  for  one  moment 
out  of  her  tired  little  arms,  which  could  hardly  clasp  it 
round.  It  seemed  but  a  fitting  reward  to  perpetuate  some 
token  of  such  faithfulness  ;  and  after  a  good  deal  of  plead- 
ing I  induced  the  child's  aunt,  in  whose  charge  she  lived,  to 
bring  her  to  be  photographed  with  her  doll  in  her  arms. 
It  was  not  an  easy  thing  to  compass  this  ;  for  the  only  pho- 
tographer of  the  town,  being  one  of  the  singers  in  the 
chorus,  had  small  leisure  for  the  practice  of  his  trade  in 
the  Passion  Play  year ;  but,  won  over  by  the  novelty  of 
the  subject,  he  found  an  odd  hour  for  us,  and  made  the 
picture.  The  little  thing  was  so  frightened  at  the  sight  of 
the  strange  room  and  instruments  that  she  utterly  refused 
to  stand  alone  for  a  second,  which  was  not  so  much  of  a  mis- 
fortune as  I  thought  at  first,  for  it  gave  me  the  aunt's  face 
also  ;  and  a  very  characteristic  Oberammergau  face  it  is. 

At  the  same  time  I  also  secured  a  photograph  of  the 
good  Frau  Rutz.  It  was  an  illustration  of  the  inborn  dra- 
matic sense  in  the  Oberammergau  people,  that  when  I  ex- 
plained to  Frau  Rutz  that  I  wished  her  to  sit  for  a  picture 
of  an  Oberammergau  woman  at  her  carving,  she  took  the 
idea  instantly,  and  appeared  prompt  to  the  minute,  with  a 
vase  of  her  own  carving,  her  glue-pot,  and  all  her  tools,  to 
la}r  on  the  table  by  her  side.  "  Do  you  not  think  it  would 
be  better  with  these  ?  "  she  said  simply  ;  then  she  took  up 
her  vase  and  tool,  as  if  to  work,  seated  herself  at  the 
table  in  a  pose  which  could  not  be  improved,  and  looked  up 
with,  "Is  this  right?"  The  photographer  nodded  his 
head,  and,  presto  !  in  five  seconds  it  was  done  ;  and  Frau 
Rutz  had  really  been  artist  of  her  own  picture.  The  like- 
ness did  her  less  than  justice.  Her  face  is  even  more  like 
an  old  Memling  portrait  than  is  the  picture.  Weather- 
beaten,  wrinkled,  thin,  —  as  old  at  forty-five  as  it  should 
be  by  rights  at  sixty,  —  hers  is  still  a  noble  and  beautiful 
countenance.  Nothing  would  so  surprise  Fran  Rutz  as  to 
be  told  this.  She  laughed  and  shook  her  head  when,  on 
giving  her  one  of  the  photographs,  I  said  how  much  I 
liked  it.  "If  it  had  another  head  on  it,  it  might  be  very 
good,"  she  said.  She  is  one  of  the  few  women  in  Ober- 
ammergau who  do  delicate  carving.  In  the  previous  win- 
ter she  "had  made  thirty  vases  of  this  pattern,  besides  doing 
much  other  work. 


396         NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

Very  well  I  came  to  know  Fran  Rutz's  chiselled  and  ex- 
pressive old  face  before  I  left  Oberammergau.  The  front 
door  of  her  house  stood  always  open  ;  and  in  a  tin}'  kitchen 
opposite  it,  —  a  sort  of  closet  in  the  middle  of  the  house, 
lighted  only  b}-  one  small  window  opening  into  the  hall, 
and  b}T  its  door,  which  was  never  shut,  —  she  was  generally 
to  be  seen  stirring  or  skimming,  or  scouring  her  bright  sauce- 
pans. Whenever  she  saw  us,  she  ran  out  with  a  smile, 
and  the  inquiry  if  there  was  anything  she  could  do  for  us. 
On  the  day  before  the  Passion  Play  she  opened  her  little 
shop.  It  was  about  the  size  of  a  steamboat  stateroom, 
built  over  a  bit  of  the  sidewalk.  —  Oberammergau  fashion, 
—  and  joined  at  a  slant  to  the  house  ;  it  was  a  set  of 
shelves  roofed  over,  and  with  a  door  to  lock  at  night,  not 
much  more :  eight  people  crowded  it  tight ;  but  it  was 
packed  from  sill  to  roof  with  carvings,  a  large  part  of 
which  had  been  made  by  herself,  her  husband  and  sons, 
or  workmen  in  their  employ,  and  most  of  which,  I  think, 
were  sold  by  virtue  of  the  Frau's  smile,  if  it  proved  as 
potent  a  lure  to  other  buyers  as  to  me.  If  I  drove  or 
walked  past  her  house  without  seeing  it,  I  felt  as  if  I  had 
left  something  behind  for  which  I  ought  to  go  back ;  and 
when  she  waved  her  hand  to  us,  and  stood  looking  after  us 
as  our  horses  dashed  round  the  corner,  I  felt  that  good 
luck  was  invoked  on  the  drive  and  the  day . 

Driving  out  of  Oberammergau,  there  are  two  roads  to 
choose  from,  —  one  up  the  Ammer,  by  way  of  a  higher  val- 
le}-,  and  into  closer  knots  of  mountains,  and  so  on  into  the 
Tyrol ;  the  other  down  the  Ammer,  through  meadows, 
doubling  and  climbing  some  of  the  outpost  mountains  of 
the  range,  and  so  on  out  to  the  plains.  On  the  first  road 
lies  Ettal,  and  on  the  other  Unterammergau,  both  within 
so  short  a  distance  of  Oberammergau  that  they  are  to  be 
counted  in  among  its  pleasures.  , 

Ettal  is  one  of  the  twelve  beautiful  houses  which  the 
ecclesiastics  formerly  owned  in  this  part  of  Bavaria. 
These  old  monks  had  a  quick  eye  for  beaut}'  of  landscape, 
as  well  as  a  shrewd  one  for  all  other  advantages  of  locality  ; 
and  in  the  days  of  their  power  and  prosperity  they  so 
crowded  into  these  South  Bavarian  highlands  that  the  re- 
gion came  to  be  called  «•  Pfaffenwinkel,"  or  "The  Priest's 
Corner."  Abbe}-s,  priories,  and  convents  —  a  dozen  of 


THE   VILLAGE   OF  OBERAMMERGAU.          897 

them,  all  rich  and  powerful  —  stood  within  a  day's  jour- 
ney of  one  another.  Of  these,  Ettal  was  pre-eminent  for 
beauty  and  splendor.  It  was  founded  early  in  the  four- 
teenth century  by  a  German  emperor,  who,  being  ill,  was 
ready  to  promise  anything  to  be  well  again,  and  being  ap- 
proached at  this  moment  by  a  crafty  Benedictine,  prom- 
ised to  found  a  Benedictine  monastery  in  the  valley  of  the 
Ammer,  if  the  Holy  Virgin  would  restore  him  to  health. 
An  old  tradition  says  that  as  the  emperor  came  riding  up  the 
steep  P^ttaler  Berg,  at  the  summit  of  which  the  monastery 
stands,  his  horse  fell  three  times  on  his  knees,  and  refused 
to  go  farther.  This  was  construed  to  be  a  sign  from 
heaven  to  point  out  the  site  of  the  monastery.  But  to 
all  unforewarned  travellers  who  have  approached  Ober- 
ammergau  by  way  of  Ettal,  and  been  compelled  to  walk 
up  the  Ettaler  Berg,  there  will  seem  small  occasion  for 
any  suggestion  of  a  supernatural  cause  for  the  emperor's 
horse  tumbling  on  his  knees.  A  more  unmitigated  two 
miles  of  severe  climb  was  never  built  into  a  road ;  the 
marvel  is  that  it  should  have  occurred  to  mortal  man  to  do 
it,  and  that  there  is  as  yet  but  one  votive  tablet  b}-  the 
roadside  in  commemoration  of  death  by  apoplexy  in  the 
attempt  to  walk  up.  It  was  Alois  Pfaurler  who  did  thus 
die  in  July,  1866,  —  and  before  he  was  half-way  up,  too. 
Therefore  this  tablet  on  the  spot  of  his  death  has  a  de- 
pressing effect  on  people  for  the  latter  half  of  their  struggle, 
and  no  doubt  makes  them  go  slower. 

How  much  the  Benedictines  of  Ettal  had  to  do  with  the 
Passion  Play  which  has  made  Oberammergau  so  famous, 
it  is  now  not  possible  to  know.  Those  who  know  most 
about  it  disagree.  In  1634,  the  year  in  which  the  play 
was  first  performed,  it  is  certain  that  the  Oberammergau 
communit}'  must  have  been  under  the  pastoral  charge  of 
some  one  of  the  great  ecclesiastical  establishments  in  that 
region  ;  and  it  is  more  than  probable  that  the  monks,  who 
were  themselves  much  in  the  way  of  writing  and  perform- 
ing in  religious  plays,  first  suggested  to  the  villagers  this 
mode  of  working  for  the  glory  and  profit  of  the  Church. 

Their  venerable  pastor,  Daisenberger,  to  whom  they 
owe  the  present  version  of  the  Passion  Play,  was  an  Ettal 
monk  ;  and  one  of  the  many  plays  which  he  has  arranged 
or  written  for  their  dramatic  training  is  "The  Founding 


398        NORWAY,   DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

of  the  Monastery  of  Ettal."  The  closing  stanzas  of  this 
well  express  the  feeling  of  the  Oberammergauer  to-day, 
and  no  doubt  of  the  Ettal  monk  centuries  ago,  in  regard 
to  the  incomparable  Ammer  Thai  region :  — 

"  Let  God  be  praised  !  He  hath  this  vale  created 

To  show  to  man  the  glory  of  his  name ! 
And  these  wide  hills  the  Lord  hath  consecrated 
Where  he  his  love  incessant  may  proclaim. 

"  Ne'er  shall  decay  the  valley's  greatest  treasure, 
Madonna,  thou  the  pledge  of  Heaven's  grace  ! 
Her  blessings  will  the  Queen  of  Heaven  outmeasure 
To  her  quiet  Ettal  and  Bavaria's  race." 

Most  travellers  who  visit  Oberammergau  know  nothing 
of  Unterammergau,  except  that  the  white  and  brown  lines 
of  its  roofs  and  spires  make  a  charming  dotted  picture  on 
the  Ammer  meadows,  as  seen  from  the  higher  seats  in  the 
Passion  Play  theatre.  The  little  hamlet  is  not  talked 
about,  not  even  in  guide-books.  It  sits,  a  sort  of  Cinder- 
ella, and  meekly  does  its  best  to  take  care  of  the  strangers 
who  come  grumbling  to  sleep  there,  once  in  ten  years, 
only  because  beds  are  not  to  be  had  in  its  more  favored 
sister  village  farther  up  the  stream.  Yet  it  is  no  less  pictur- 
esque, and  a  good  deal  cleaner,  than  is  Oberammergau ; 
gets  hours  more  of  sunshine,  a  freer  sweep  of  wind,  and 
has  compassing  it  about  a  fine  stretch  of  meadow-lands, 
beautiful  to  look  at,  and  rich  to  reap. 

Its  houses  are,  like  those  in  Oberammergau,  chiefly 
white  stucco  over  stone,  or  else  dark  and  painted  wood, 
often  the  lower  story  of  white  stucco  and  the  upper  one  of 
dark  wood,  with  a  fringe  of  balconies,  dried  herbs,  and 
wood-piles  where  the  two  stories  join.  Many  of  the  stuc- 
coed houses  are  gay  with  Scripture  frescos,  more  than 
one  hundred  years  old,  and  not  faded  yet.  There  are 
also  man}'  of  the  curious  ancient  windows,  made  of  tiny 
round  panes  set  in  lead.  When  these  are  broken,  square 
panes  have  to  be  set  in.  Nobody  can  make  the  round 
ones  any  more.  On  the  inside  of  the  brown  wooden 
shutters  are  paintings  of  bright  flowers ;  over  the  win- 
dows, and  above  the  doors,  are  also  Scripture  frescos. 
One  old  house  is  covered  with  them.  One  scene  is  Saint 
Francis  lying  on  his  back,  with  his  cross  by  his  side ;  and 
another,  the  coronation  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  in  which  God 


THE   VILLAGE  OF  OBERAMMERGAU.          399 

the  Father  is  represented  as  a  venerable  man  wrapped  in 
a  red  and  yellow  robe,  with  a  long  white  beard,  resting  his 
hand  on  the  round  globe,  while  Christ,  in  a  red  mantle,  is 
putting  the  crown  on  the  head  of  Mary,  who  is  resplendent 
in  bright  blue  and  red.  On  another  wall  is  Saint  Joseph, 
holding  the  infant  Christ  on  his  knee.  There  must  have 
been  a  marvellous  secret  in  the  coloring  of  these  old  fres- 
cos, that  they  have  so  long  withstood  the  snows,  rains,  and 
winds  of  the  Ainrner  valley.  The  greater  part  of  them 
were  painted  by  one  Franz  Zwink,  in  the  middle  of  the 
last  centuiy.  The  peasants  called  him  the  "  wind  painter," 
because  he  worked  with  such  preternatural  rapidity.  Many 
legends  attest  this  ;  among  others,  a  droll  one  of  his  find- 
ing a  woman  at  her  churning  one  day  and  asking  her 
for  some  butter.  She  refused.  "If  you'll  give  me  that 
butter,"  said  Zwink,  "  I  '11  paint  a  Mother  of  God  for  you 
above  }-our  door."  "Very  well ;  it  is  a  bargain,"  said  the 
woman,  "provided  the  picture  is  done  as  soon  as  the 
butter,"  whereupon  Zwink  mounted  to  the  wall,  and,  his. 
brushes  flying  as  fast  as  her  churn-dasher,  lo !  when  the 
butter  was  done,  there  shone  out  the  fresh  Madonna  over 
the  door,  and  the  butter  had  been  fairly  earned.  Zwink 
was  an  athletic  fellow,  and  walked  as  swiftly  as  he  painted  ; 
gay,  moreover,  for  there  is  a  tradition  of  his  having  run 
all  the  way  to  Munich  once  for  a  dance.  Being  too  poor 
to  hire  a  horse,  he  ran  thither  in  one  day,  danced  all  night, 
and  the  next  day  ran  back  to  Oberammergau,  fresh  and 
merry.  He  was  originally  only  a  color-rubber  in  the  studio 
of  one  of  the  old  rococo  painters  ;  but  certain  it  is  that  he 
either  stole  or  invented  a  most  triumphant  system  of  color- 
ing, whose  secret  is  unknown  to-day.  It  is  said  that  in 
1790  every  house  in  both  Ober  and  Unter  Ammergau  was 
painted  in  this  way.  But  repeated  fires  have  destroyed 
many  of  the  most  valuable  frescos,  and  many  others  have 
been  ruthlessly  covered  up  by  whitewash.  An  old  history 
of  the  valley  says  that  when  the  inhabitants  saw  flames 
consuming  these  sacred  images,  they  wept  aloud  in  terror 
and  grief,  not  so  much  for  the  loss  of  their  dwellings  as 
for  the  irreparable  loss  of  the  guardian  pictures.  The 
effect  of  these  on  a  race  for  three  generations,  — one  after 
another  growing  up  in  the  habit,  from  earliest  infancy,  of 
gazing  on  the  visible  representations  of  God  and  Christ 


400        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

and  the  Mother  of  God,  placed  as  if  in  token  of  perpetual 
presence  and  protection  on  the  very  walls  and  roofs  of 
their  homes  —  must  be  incalculably  great.  Such  a  people 
would  be  religious  by  nature,  as  inherently  and  organically 
as  they  were  hardy  of  frame  by  reason  of  the  stern  neces- 
sities of  their  existence.  It  is  a  poor  proof  of  the  superi- 
ority of  enlightened,  emancipated,  and  cultivated  intellect, 
with  all  its  fine  analyses  of  what  God  is  not,  if  it  tends  to 
hold  in  scorn  or  dares  to  hold  in  pity  the  ignorance  which 
is  yet  so  full  of  spirituality  that  it  believes  it  can  even  see 
what  God  is,  and  feels  safer  by  night  and  day  with  a  cross 
at  each  gable  of  the  roof. 

One  of  the  Unterammergau  women,  seeing  me  closely 
studying  the  frescos  on  her  house,  asked  me  to  come  in, 
and  with  half-shy  hospitality,  and  a  sort  of  childlike  glee 
at  my  interest,  showed  me  every  room.  The  house  is  one 
of  some  note,  as  note  is  reckoned  in  Unterammergau :  it 
was  built  in  1700,  is  well  covered  with  Zwink's  frescos, 
and  bears  an  inscription  stating  that  it  was  the  birthplace 
of  one  "  Max  Anrich,  canon  of  St.  Zeno."  It  is  the  dwell- 
ing now  of  only  humble  people,  but  has  traces  of  better 
days  in  the  square-blocked  wooden  ceilings  and  curious 
old  gayly-painted  cupboards.  Around  three  sides  of  the 
living-room  ran  a  wooden  bench,  which  made  chairs  a 
superfluous  luxury.  In  one  corner,  on  a  raised  stone 
platform,  stood  a  square  stove,  surrounded  by  a  broad 
bench ;  two  steps  led  up  to  this  bench,  and  from  the 
bench,  two  steps  more  to  the  lower  round  of  a  ladder- 
like  stair  leading  to  the  chamber  overhead.  The  kitchen 
had  a  brick  floor,  worn  and  sunken  in  hollows ;  the  stove 
was  raised  up  on  a  high  stone  platform,  with  a  similar 
bench  around  it,  and  the  woman  explained  that  to  sit  on 
this  bench  with  your  back  to  the  fire  was  a  veiy  good  thing 
to  do  in  winter.  Every  nook,  every  utensil,  was  shining 
clean.  In  one  corner  stood  a  great  box  full  of  whetstones, 
scythe-sharpeners ;  the  making  of  these  was  the  industry 
by  which  the  brothers  earned  the  most  of  their  mone}-,  she 
said ;  surely  very  little  money,  then,  must  come  into  the 
house.  There  were  four  brothers,  three  sisters,  and  the 
old  mother,  who  sat  at  a  window  smiling  foolishly  all 
the  time,  aged,  imbecile,  but  very  happy.  As  we  drove 
away,  one  of  the  sisters  came  running  with  a  few  little 


THE    VILLAGE   OF  OBERAMMERGAU.          401 

blossoms  she  had  picked  from  her  balcony ;  she  halted, 
disappointed,  aud  too  shy  to  offer  them,  but  her  whole  face 
lighted  up  with  pleasure  as  I  ordered  the  driver  to  halt 
that  I  might  take  her  gift.  She  little  knew  that  I  was 
thinking  how  much  the  hospitality  of  her  people  shamed 
the  cold  indifference  of  so-called  finer  breeding. 

A  few  rods  on,  we  came  to  a  barn,  in  whose  open  door- 
way stood  two  women  threshing  wheat  with  ringing  flails. 
Red  handkerchiefs  twisted  tight  round  their  heads  and 
down  to  their  eyebrows,  barefooted,  bare-legged,  bare- 
armed  to  the  shoulders,  swinging  their  flails  lustily,  and 
laughing  as  they  saw  me  stop  my  horses  to  have  a  better 
look  at  them ;  they  made  one  of  the  vividest  pictures  I 
saw  in  the  Ammer  valley.  Women  often  are  hired  there 
for  this  work  of  threshing,  and  they  are  expected  to  swing 
flails  with  that  lusty  stroke  all  day  long  for  one  mark. 


THE  PASSION  PLAY  AT  OBERAMMERGAU. 

THE  stir  the  Passion  Play  brings  does  not  begin  in  Ober- 
ammergau  till  the  Friday  afternoon  before  the  Sabbath  of 
the  play.  Then,  gradually,  as  a  hum  begins  and  swells  in 
a  disturbed  hive  of  bees,  begins  and  swells  the  bustle  of 
the  incoming  of  strangers  into  the  little  place.  By  sunset 
the  crooked  lanes  and  streets  are  swarming  with  people  who 
have  all  fancied  they  were  coming  in  good  season  before 
the  crowd.  The  open  space  in  front  of  George  Lang's 
house  was  a  scene  for  a  painter  as  the  sun  went  down  on 
Friday,  Sept.  5,  1880.  The  village  herd  of  cows  was 
straggling  past  on  its  easy  homeward  way,  the  fifty  bells 
tinkling  even  more  sleepily  than  in  the  morning ;  a  little 
goat-herd,  with  bright  brown  e3*es,  and  bright  brown  par- 
tridge feathers  in  his  hat,  was  worrying  his  little  flock  of 
goats  along  in  the  jam;  vehicles  of  all  sorts,  — einspan- 
ners,  diligences,  landaus, — all  pulling,  twisting,  turning, 
despairing,  were  trying  to  go  the  drivers  did  not  know 
where,  and  were  asking  the  way  helplessly  of  each  other. 
To  heighten  the  confusion,  a  load  of  hay  upset  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  crowd.  Twent}T  shoulders  were  under  it  in  a 
twinkling,  and  the  cart  was  rolled  on,  limping,  on  three 
wheels,  friendly  hands  holding  up  the  corner.  Thirty-four 
vehicles,  one  after  another,  halted  in  front  of  George  Lang's 
door.  Out  of  many  of  them  the  occupants  jumped  con- 
fidently, looking  much  satisfied  at  sight  of  so  comfortable 
a  house,  and  presenting  little  slips  of  white  paper  consign- 
ing them  to  Mr.  Lang's  care.  Much  crestfallen,  they  re- 
entered  their  vehicles,  to  be  driven  to  the  quarters  reserved 
for  them  elsewhere.  Some  argued  ;  some  grumbled  ;  some 
entreated  :  all  in  vain.  The  decrees  of  the  house  of  Lang 
are  like  those  of  the  Modes  and  Persians. 


PASSfON  PLAY  AT  OBERAMMERGAU.        403 

It  was  long  after  midnight  before  the  sound  of  wheels  aad 
voices  and  the  cracks  of  postilions'  whips  ceased  under  my 
windows  ;  and  it  began  again  before  daylight  the  next 
morning.  All  was  huny  and  stir,  —  crowds  going  to  the 
early  mass ;  still  greater  crowds,  with  anxious  faces,  be- 
sieging the  doors  of  the  building  where  were  to  be  issued 
the  numbered  tickets  for  seats  at  the  Play ;  more  crowds 
coming  in,  chiefly  pedestrians ;  peasant  men  and  women  in 
all  varieties  and  colors  of  costume ;  Englishmen  in  natty 
travelling-clothes,  with  white  veils  streaming  from  their 
hats ;  Roman  Catholic  priests  in  squads,  their  square- 
brimmed  hats  and  high  black  coats  white  with  dust.  Eager, 
intent,  swift,  by  hundreds  and  hundreds  they  poured  in. 
Without  seeing  it,  one  can  never  realize  what  a  spectacle 
is  produced  by  this  rushing  in  of  six  thousand  people  into 
a  little  town  in  the  space  of  thirty-six  hours.  There  can 
be  nothing  like  it  except  in  the  movements  of  armies.  Be- 
ing in  the  streets  was  like  being  in  a  chorus  or  village- 
fair  scene  on  an  opera  stage  a  mile  big,  and  crowded  full 
from  corner  to  corner.  The  only  thing  to  do  was  to  aban- 
don one's  self  to  currents,  like  a  ship  afloat,  and  drift,  now 
down  this  street  and  now  down  that,  now  whirl  into  an 
eddy  and  come  to  a  stop,  and  now  hurry  purposelessly  on, 
just  as  the  preponderating  push  might  determine.  Mingled 
up  in  it  all,  in  everybody's  way  and  under  all  the  horses' 
feet,  were  dozens  of  little  mites  of  Oberammergauers,  look- 
ing five,  six,  seven  years  of  age,  like  lost  children,  offering 
for  sale  "  books  of  the  Passion  Play."  Every  creature 
above  the  age  of  an  infant  is  busy  at  this  time  in  other 
ways  in  Oberammergau  ;  so  it  is  left  for  the  babies  to  hawk 
the  librettos  round  the  streets,  and  very  shrewdly  they  do 
it.  Little  tots  that  are  trusted  with  only  one  book  at  a 
time,  —  all  they  can  carry,  —  as  soon  as  it  is  sold,  grab  the 
pennies  in  chubby  hands  and  toddle  home  after  another. 

As  the  day  wore  on,  the  crowd  and  the  hum  of  it  increased 
into  a  jam 'and  a  racket.  By  four  o'clock  it  was  a  din  of 
wheels,  cracking  whips,  and  postilions'  cries.  Great  dili- 
gences, loaded  down  till  they  squeaked  and  groaned  on 
their  axles ;  hay-wagons  of  all  sizes,  rigged  with  white 
cloth  stretched  on  poles  for  a  cover,  and  rough  planks 
fastened  to  the  sides  for  seats,  came  in  procession,  all 
packed  with  the  country  people  ;  hundreds  of  shabby  ein- 


404        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY 

spanners,  bringing  two  or  three,  and  sometimes  a  fourth 
holding  on  behind  with  dangling  feet ;  fine  travelling-car- 
riages of  rich  people,  their  postilions  decked  in  blue  and 
silver,  with  shining  black  hats,  and  brass  horns  swung  over 
their  shoulders  by  green  and  white  cords  and  tassels,  — 
on  they  came  into  the  twist  and  tangle,  making  it  worse, 
minute  by  minute. 

Most  remarkable  among  all  the  remarkable  costumes  to 
be  seen  was  that  of  an  old  woman  from  Dachau.  She  was 
only  a  peasant,  but  she  was  a  peasant  of  some  estate  and 
degree.  She  had  come  as  escort  and  maid  for  four  young 
women  belonging  to  a  Roman  Catholic  institution,  and 
wearing  its  plain  uniform.  The  contrast  between  the  young 
ladies'  conventional  garb  of  black  and  white  and  the  blazing 
toilet  of  their  guide  and  protector  was  ludicrous.  She 
wore  a  jacket  of  brocade  stiff  with  red,  green,  and  silver 
embroidery ;  the  sleeves  puffed  out  big  at  the  shoulder, 
straight  and  tight  below  to  the  wrist.  It  came  down  be- 
hind only  a  little  lower  than  her  shoulder-blades,  and  it  was 
open  in  front  from  the  thi'oat  to  the  waist-belt,  showing 
beneath  a  solid  mass  of  gold  and  silver  braid.  Nine  enor- 
mous silver  buttons  were  sewed  on  each  side  the  fronts  ;  a 
scarf  of  soft  black  silk  was  fastened  tight  round  her  throat  by 
a  superb  silver  ornament,  all  twists  and  chains  and  disks. 
Her  black  woollen  petticoat  was  laid  in  small,  close  flutings, 
straight  from  belt  to  hem,  edged  with  scarlet,  and  appar- 
ently was  stiff  enough  to  stand  alone.  It  was  held  out 
from  her  body,  just  below  the  belt,  by  a  stiff  rope  coil  un- 
derneath it,  making  a  tight,  hard,  round  ridge  just  below 
her  waist,  and  nearly  doubling  her  apparent  size.  All  the 
women  in  Dachau  must  be  as  "  thick  "  as  that,  she  said  ; 
and  "  lovers  must  have  long  arms  to  reach  round  them  !  " 
The  jacket,  petticoat,  and  scarf,  and  all  her  ornaments,  had 
belonged  to  her  grandmother.  What  a  comment  on  the 
quality  of  the  fabrics  and  the  perpetuity  of  a  fashion  !  She 
was  as  elegant  to-daj-  as  her  ancestor  had  been  nearly  a  cen- 
tury before  her.  On  her  head  she  wore  a  structure  of  bro- 
caded black  ribbon,  built  up  into  high  projecting  horns  or 
towers,  and  floating  in  streamers  behind.  As  she  herself 
was  nearly  six  feet  tall,  this  shining  brocade  fortress  on  the 
top  of  her  head  moved  about  above  the  heads  of  the  crowd 
like  something  carried  aloft  for  show  in  a  procession. 


PASSION  PLAY  AT  OBERAMMERGAU.         405 

Another  interesting  sight  was  the  peasants  who  had 

come  bringing  edelweiss  and  blue  gentians  to  sell, great 

bunches  of  the  lovely  dark  blue  chalices,  drooping  a  little, 
but  wonderfully  fresh  to  have  come  two  days,  or  even  three^ 
from  home  ;  the  edelweiss  blossoms  were  there  by  sheaves^ 
and  ten  pfennigs  a  flower  seemed  none  too  much  to  pay  to 
a  man  who  had  climbed  among  dangerous  glaciers  to  pick 
it,  and  had  walked  three  whole  days  to  bring  it  to  market. 

The  very  poor  people,  who  had  walked,  were  the  most 
interesting.  They  came  in  groups,  evidently  families,  two 
women  to  one  man ;  carrying  their  provisions  in  baskets, 
bundles,  or  knapsacks  ;  worn  and  haggard  with  dust  and 
fatigue,  but  wearing  a  noticeable  look  of  earnestness,  al- 
most of  exaltation.  Many  of  them  had  walked  forty  or 
fifty  miles  ;  they  had  brought  only  black  bread  to  eat ;  they 
would  sleep  the  two  nights  on  hay  in  some  barn,  —  those 
of  them  who  had  had'  the  great  good  fortune  to  secure 
such  a  luxury ;  the  rest  —  and  that  meant  hundreds  — 
would  sit  on  the  ground  anywhere  where  they  could  find  a 
spot  clear  and  a  rest  for  their  heads  ;  and  after  two  nights 
and  a  day  of  this,  they  trudged  back  again  their  fort}' 
miles  or  fifty,  refreshed,  glad,  and  satisfied  for  the  rest  of 
their  lives.  This  is  what  the  Passion  Play  means  to  the 
devout,  ignorant  Catholic  peasant  of  Bavaria  to-day,  and 
this  is  what  it  has  meant  to  his  race  for  hundreds  of  j'ears. 

The  antagonism  and  enlightenment  of  the  Reformation 
did  not  reach  the  Bavarian  peasant,  —  did  not  so  much  as 
disturb  his  reverence  for  the  tangible  tokens  and  presenta- 
tions of  his  religion.  He  did  not  so  much  as  know  when 
miracle  plays  were  cast  out  and  forbidden  in  other  coun- 
tries. But 'it  was  sixty-one  years  later  than  this  that  the 
Oberammergau  people,  stricken  with  terror  at  a  plague  in 
their  village,  knew  no  better  device  to  stay  it  than  to  vow 
to  God  the  performance  of  a  Play  of  the  Divine  Passion  of 
Christ.  It  is  as  holy  a  thing  to  the  masses  of  them  now 
as  it  was  then  ;  and  no  one  can  do  justice  to  the  play, 
even  as  a  dramatic  spectacle,  who  does  not  look  at  it 
with  recognition  of  this  fact. 

The  early  history  of  the  Play  itself  is  not  known.  The 
oldest  text-book  of  it  now  extant  bears  the  date  1662, — 
nearly  a  generation  later  than  the  first  performance  of  it 
in  Oberammergau.  This  manuscript  is  still  in  possession 


406         NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

of  the  Lang  family,  and  is  greatly  amusing  in  parts.  The 
prologue  gives  an  account  of  the  New  Testament  plan  of 
salvation,  and  exhorts  all  people  to  avail  themselves  of 
it  with  gratitude  and  devotion.  At  this  juncture  in  rushes 
a  demon  messenger  from  the  devil,  bearing  a  letter,  which 
he  unfolds  and  reads.  In  this  letter  the  devil  requests  all 
the  people  not  to  yield  to  the  influence  of  this  play,  asks 
them  to  make  all  the  discordant  noises  they  can  while  it  is 
going  on,  and  promises  to  reward  them  well  if  they  will  do 
so.  The  letter  is  signed:  "I,  Lucifer,  Dog  of  Hell,  in 
my  hellish  house,  where  the  fire  pours  out  of  the  win- 
dows." The  demon,  having  read  the  letter  aloud,  folds 
it  up  and  addresses  the  audience,  sa3'ing :  "Now  3-011 
have  heard  what  my  master  wishes.  He  is  a  very  good 
master,  and  will  reward  you !  Hie,  Devil !  up  and  away  !  " 
with  which  he  leaps  off  the  stage,  and  the  play  at  once  be- 
gins, opening  with  a  scene  laid  in  Bethan}*,  —  a  meeting 
between  Christ  and  his  disciples.  These  grotesque  fancies, 
quips,  and  cranks  were  gradually  banished  from  the  Play. 
Every  year  it  was  more  or  less  altered,  priest  after  priest 
revising  or  rewriting  it,  down  to  the  time  of  the  now  ven- 
erable Daisenberger,  who  spent  his  youth  in  the  monastery 
of  Ettal,  and  first  saw  the  Passion  Play  acted  at  Ober- 
ammergau  in  1830. 

In  1845  the  Oberammergau  people,  in  unanimous  en- 
thusiasm, demanded  to  have  Daisenberger  appointed  as 
their  pastor.  He  at  once  identified  himself  warmly  with 
the  dramatic  as  well  as  the  spiritual  life  of  the  community ; 
and  it  is  to  his  learning  and  skill  that  the  final  admirable 
form  of  the  Passion  Play,  and  the  villagers'  wonderful 
success  in  rendering  it,  are  due.  He  has  written  many 
Biblical  dramas  and  historical  plays  founded  on  incidents 
in  the  history  of  Bavaria.  Chief  among  these  are  :  "The 
Founding  of  the  Monastery  of  Ettal,"  "Theolinda," 
"King  Heinrich  and  Duke  Arnold  of  Bavaria,"  "Otto 
Von  Wittelsbach  at  the  Veronese  Hermitage,"  "The 
Bavarians  in  the  Peasants'  War,"  "Luitberge,  Duchess  of 
Bavaria."  He  has  also  dramatized  some  of  the  legends 
of  the  saints,  and  has  translated  the  "Antigone"  of 
Sophocles  and  arranged  it  for  the  Oberammergau  stage. 
A  half-century's  training  under  the  guidance  of  so  learned 
and  dramatic  a  writer,  who  added  to  his  learning  and  fine 


PASSION  PLAY  AT  OBERAMMERGAU.         407 

dramatic  faculty  a  profound  spirituality  and  passionate 
adherence  to  the  faiths  and  dogmas  of  the  Church,  might 
well  create,  in  a  simple  religious  community,  a  capacity 
and  a  fervor  even  greater  than  have  been  shown  bv  the 
Oberammergau  people.  To  understand  the  extent  and  the 
method  of  their  attainment,  it  is  needful  to  realize  all  this  ; 
but  no  amount  of  study  of  the  details  of  the  long  process 
can  full}-  convey  or  set  forth  the  subtle  influences  which 
must  have  pervaded  the  very  air  of  the  place  during  these 
years.  The  acting  of  pla}Ts  has  been  not  only  the  one  rec- 
reation of  their  life,  otherwise  hard-worked,  sombre,  and 
stern,  —  it  has  been  their  one  channel  for  the  two  greatest 
passions  of  the  human  heart,  —  love  of  approbation  and 
the  instinct  of  religious  worship ;  for  the  Oberammergau 
peasant,  both  these  passions  have  centred  on  and  in  his 
chance  to  win  fame,  please  his  priest,  and  honor  God,  by 
playing  well  some  worthy  part  in  the  Passion  Play.  The 
hope  and  the  ambition  for  this  have  been  the  earliest 
emotions  roused  in  the  Oberammergau  child's  breast.  In 
the  tableaux  of  the  Play  even  very  young  children  take 
part,  and  it  is  said  that  it  has  always  been  the  reward  held 
up  to  them  as  soon  as  they  could  know  what  the  words 
meant:  "If  thou  art  good,  thou  mayest  possibly  have  the 
honor  of  being  selected  to  play  in  the  Passion  Play  when 
the  year  comes  round."  Not  to  be  considered  fit  to  take 
any  part  in  the  Play  is  held,  in  Oberammergau,  to  be  dis- 
grace ;  while  to  be  regarded  as  worthy  to  render  the  part 
of  the  Christus  is  the  greatest  honor  which  a  man  can 
receive  in  this  world.  To  take  away  from  an  actor  a  part 
he  has  once  plaj-ed  is  a  shame  that  can  hardh*  be  borne ; 
and  it  is  on  record  that  once  a  man  to  whom  this  had 
happened  sank  into  a  melancholy  which  became  madness. 

When  the  time  approaches  for  the  choice  of  the  actors 
and  the  assignment  of  the  parts,  the  whole  village  is  in  a 
turmoil.  The  selections  and  assignments  are  made  by  a 
committee  of  forty -five,  presided  over  by  the  priest  and  by 
the  venerable  "Geistlicher  Rath"  Daisenberger,  who,  now 
in  his  eightieth  year,  still  takes  the  keenest  interest  in  all 
the  dramatic  performances  of  his  pupils.  The  election 
day  is  in  the  last  week  of  December  of  the  year  before  the 
Play ;  and  the  members  of  the  committee,  before  going  to 
this  meeting,  attend  a  mass  in  the  church.  The  deciding 


408        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

as  to  the  players  for  1880  took  three  days'  time,  and  great 
heart-burnings  were  experienced  in  the  community.  In 
regard  to  the  half-dozen  prominent  parts  there  is  rarely 
much  disagreement ;  but  as  there  are  some  seven  hundred 
actors  required  for  the  Play,  there  must  inevitably  be 
antagonisms  and  jealousies  among  the  minor  characters. 
However,  when  the  result  of  the  discussions  and  votes  of 
the  committee  is  made  public,  all  dissension  ceases.  One 
of  the  older  actors  is  appointed  to  take  charge  of  the 
rehearsals,  and  from  his  authority  there  is  no  appeal. 
Each  player  is  required  to  rehearse  his  part  four  times  a 
week  ;  and  as  early  in  the  spring  as  the  snow  is  out  of  the 
theatre  the  final  rehearsals  begin.  Thus  each  Passion 
Play  year  is  a  year  of  very  hard  work  for  the  Oberammer- 
gauers.  Except  for  their  constant  familiarit}'  with  stage 
routine  and  unbroken  habit  of  stage  representation  through 
the  intervening  years,  they  would  never  be  able  to  endure 
the  strain  of  the  Passion  Play  summers ;  and  as  it  is,  they 
look  wan  and  worn  before  the  season  is  ended. 

It  is  a  thankless  return  that  they  have  received  at  the 
hands  of  some  travellers,  who  have  seen  in  the  Passion 
Play  little  more  than  a  show  of  mountebanks  acting  for 
money.  The  truth  is  that  the  individual  performers  re- 
ceive an  incredibly  small  share  of  the  profits  of  the  Play. 
There  is  not  another  village  in  the  world  whose  members 
would  work  so  hard,  and  at  so  great  personal  sacrifice, 
for  the  good  of  their  community  and  their  Church.  Every 
dollar  of  the  money  received  goes  into  the  hands  of  a 
committee  selected  by  the  people.  After  all  the  costs  are 
paid,  the  profits  are  divided  into  four  portions  :  one  quar- 
ter is  set  aside  to  be  expended  for  the  Church,  for  the 
school,  and  for  the  poor ;  another  for  the  improvement  of 
the  village,  for  repairs  of  highways,  public  buildings,  etc. ; 
a  third  is  divided  among  the  tax-paj'ing  citizens  of  the  town 
who  have  incurred  the  expense  of  preparing  for  the  Play, 
buying  the  costumes,  etc.  The  remaining  quarter  is  ap- 
portioned among  the  pla3"ers,  according  to  the  importance 
of  their  respective  parts  ;  as  there  are  seven  hundred  of 
them,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  individual  gains  cannot 
be  very  great. 

The  music  of  the  Pla}",  as  now  performed,  was  written 
in  1814,  by  Rochus  Dedler,  an  Oberammergau  schoolmas- 


PASSION  PLAY  AT  OBERAMMERGAU.         409 

ter.  It  has  for  many  years  been  made  a  sine  qua  non  of 
this  position  in  Oberammergau  that  the  master  must  be  a 
musician,  and,  if  possible,  a  composer;  and  Dedler  is  not 
the  only  composer  who  has  been  content  in  the  humble 
position  of  schoolmaster  in  this  village  of  peasants.  Every 
day  the  children  are  drilled  in  chorus  singing  and  in  reci- 
tative ;  with  masses  and  other  church  music  they  are  early 
made  familiar.  Thus  is  every  avenue  of  training  made  to 
minister  to  the  development  of  material  for  the  perfection 
of  the  Passion  Play. 

Dedler  is  said  to  have  been  a  man  of  almost  inspired 
nature.  He  wrote  often  by  night,  and  with  preternatural 
rapidity.  The  music  of  the  Passion  Play  was  begun  on 
the  evening  of  Trinity  Sunday  ;  he  called  his  six  children 
together,  made  them  kneel  in  a  circle  around  him,  and 
saying,  "Now  I  begin,"  ordered  them  all  to  devote  them- 
selves to  earnest  prayer  for  him  that  he  might  write  music 
worthy  of  the  good  themes  of  the  Play.  The  last  notes 
were  written  on  the  following  Christmas  Da}-,  and  they 
are  indeed  worthy  of  the  stor}r  for  which  they  are  at  once 
the  expression  and  the  setting.  The  harmonies  are  digni- 
fied, simple,  and  tender,  with  movements  at  times  much 
resembling  some  of  Mozart's  Masses.  Many  of  the  chorals 
are  full  of  solemn  beauty.  A  daughter  of  Dedler's  is  still 
living  in  Munich  ;  and  to  her  the  grateful  and  honest-minded 
Oberammergau  people  have  sent,  after  each  performance 
of  the  Passion  Play,  a  sum  of  money  in  token  of  their 
sense  of  indebtedness  to  her  father's  work. 

The  Passion  Play  cannot  be  considered  solely  as  a 
drama  ;  neither  is  it  to  be  considered  simply  as  a  historical 
panorama,  presenting  the  salient  points  in  the  earthly 
career  of  Jesus  called  Christ.  To  consider  it  in  either  of 
these  ways,  or  to  behold  it  in  the  spirit  born  of  either  of 
these  two  views,  is  to  do  only  partial  justice  to  it.  What- 
ever there  might  have  been  in  the  beginning  of  theatrical 
show  and  diversion  and  fantastic  conceit  about  it,  has 
been  long  ago  eliminated.  Generation  after  generation 
of  devout  and  holy  men  have  looked  upon  it  more  and 
more 'as  a  vehicle*  for  the  profoundest  truths  of  their 
religion,  and  have  added  to  it,  scene  by  scene,  speech  by 
speech,  everything  which  in  their  esteem  could  enhance  its 
solemnity  and  make  clear  its  teaching.  However  muc-h 


410        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

one  may  disagree  with  its  doctrines,  reject  its  assump- 
tions, or  question  its  interpretations,  that  is  no  reason  for 
overlooking  its  significance  as  a  tangible  and  rounded 
presentation  of  that  scheme  of  the  redemption  of  the 
world  in  which  to-da}T  millions  of  men  and  women  have 
full  faith.  It  is  by  no  means  distinctively  a  Roman  Cath- 
olic presentation  of  this  scheme ;  it  is  Christian.  The 
Holj-  Virgin  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  is,  in  this  play, 
from  first  to  last,  only  the  mother  of  Jesus,  —  the  mother 
whom  all  lovers  and  followers  of  Jesus,  wherever  they 
place  him  or  her,  however  tbe%y  define  his  nature  and  her 
relations  to  him,  yet  hold  blessed  among  the  women  who 
have  given  birth  to  leaders  and  saviors  of  men. 

This  presentation  of  the  scheme  of  redemption  seeks  to 
portray  not  only  the  scenes  of  the  life  of  Jesus  on  earth, 
but  the  typical  foreshadowing  of  it  in  the  Old  Testament 
narratives,  —  its  prophecy  as  well  as  its  fulfilment.  To  this 
end  there  are  given,  before  each  act  of  the  Pla}*,  tableaux 
of  Old  Testament  events,  supposed  to  be  directly  typical, 
and  intended  to  be  prophetic,  of  the  scenes  in  Christ's  life 
which  are  depicted  in  the  act  following.  These  are  selected 
with  skill,  and  rendered  with  marvellous  effect.  For  in- 
stance, a  tableau  of  the  plotting  of  Joseph's  brethren  to 
sell  him  into  Egypt,  is  given  before  the  act  in  which  the 
Jewish  priests  in  the  full  council  of  the  Sanhedrim  plot 
the  death  of  Jesus ;  a  tableau  of  the  miraculous  fall  of 
manna  for  the  Israelites  in  the  wilderness,  before  the  act 
in  which  is  given  Christ's  Last  Supper  with  his  Disciples  ; 
the  sale  of  Joseph  to  the  Midianites  before  the  bargain  of 
Judas  with  the  priests  for  the  betrayal  of  Jesus  ;  the  death 
of  Abel,  and  Cain's  despair,  before  the  act  in  which  Judas, 
driven  mad  by  remorse,  throws  down  at  the  feet  of  the 
priests  the  "price  of  blood,"  and  rushes  out  to  hang  him- 
self; Daniel  defending  himself  to  Darius,  before  the  act 
in  which  Jesus  is  brought  into  the  presence  of  Pilate  for 
trial ;  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac,  before  the  scourging  of  Jesus 
and  his  crowning  with  the  thorns  :  these  are  a  few  of  the 
best  and  most  relevant  ones. 

The  Play  is  divided  into  eighteen  acts,  and  covers  the 
time  from  Christ's  entry  into  Jerusalem  at  the  time  of  his 
driving  the  money-changers  out  of  the  temple  till  his  ascen- 
sion. The  salient  points,  both  historical  and  graphic,  are 


PASSION  PLAY  AT  OBERAMMERGAU.        411 

admirabry  chosen  for  a  continuous  representation.  In 
the  second  act  is  seen  the  High  Council  of  the  Jewish  San- 
hedrim plotting  measures  for  the  ruin  and  death  of  Jesus. 
This  is  followed  by  his  Departure  from  Bethany,  the  Last 
Journey  to  Jerusalem,  the  Last  Supper,  the  Final  Interview 
between  Judas  and  the  Sanhedrim,  the  Betrayal  in  the 
Garden  of  Gethsemane. 

The  performance  of  the  Play  up  to  this  point  consumes 
four  hours  ;  and  as  there  is  here  a  natural  break  in  the 
action,  an  interval  of  an  hour's  rest  is  taken.  It  comes 
none  too  soon,  either  to  actors  or  spectators,  after  so  long 
a  strain  of  unbroken  attention  and  deep  emotion. 

The  next  act  is  the  bringing  of  Jesus  before  the  High- 
Priest  Annas  ;  Annas  orders  him  taken  before  Caiaphas, 
and  this  is  the  ninth  act  of  the  Play.  Then  follow :  The 
Despair  of  Judas  and  his  Bitter  Reproaches  to  the  Sanhe- 
drim, The  Interview  between  Jesus  and  Pilate,  His  Ap- 
pearance before  Herod,  His  Scourging  and  Crowning  with 
Thorns,  The  Pronouncing  of  his  Death  Sentence  by  Pi- 
late, The  Ascent  to  Golgotha,  The  Crucifixion  and  Burial, 
The  Resurrection  and  Ascension.  The  whole  lesson  of 
Christ's  life,  the  whole  lesson  of  Christ's  death,  are  thus 
shown,  taught,  impressed  with  a  vividness  which  one  must 
be  callous  not  to  feel.  The  quality  or  condition  of  mind 
which  can  remain  to  the  end  either  unmoved  or  antago- 
nistic is  not  to  be  envied.  But,  setting  aside  all  and  every 
consideration  of  the  moral  quality  of  the  Play,  looking  at 
it  simply  as  a  dramatic  spectacle,  as  a  matter  of  acting,  of 
pictorial  effects,  it  is  impossible  to  deny  to  it  a  place  among 
the  masterly  theatrical  representations  of  the  world.  One's 
natural  incredulity  as  to  the  possibility  of  true  dramatic 
skill  on  the  part  of  comparativel}"  unlettered  peasants 
melts  and  disappears  at  sight  of  the  first  act,  The  Entry 
of  Christ  into  Jerusalem. 

The  stage,  open  to  the  sky,  with  a  background  so  in- 
geniously arranged  as  to  give  a  good  representation  of 
several  streets  of  the  city,  is  crowded  in  a  few  moments 
by  five  hundred  men  and  women  and  children,  all  waving 
palm  branches,  singing  hosannas,  and  crowding  around  the 
central  figure  of  Jesus  riding  on  an  ass.  The  verisimilitude 
of  the  scene  is  bewildering.  The  splendor  of  the  colors  is 
dazzling.  Watching  this  crowd  of  five  hundred  actors 


412        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

closely,  one  finds  not  a  single  man,  woman,  or  little  child 
performing  his  part  mechanically  or  absently.  The  whole 
five  hundred  are  acting  as  if  each  one  regarded  his  part  as 
the  central  and  prominent  one  ;  in  fact,  they  are  so  acting 
that  it  does  not  seem  acting  :  this  is  characteristic  of  the 
acting  throughout  the  play.  There  is  not  a  moment's 
slighting  or  tameness  anywhere.  The  most  insignificant 
part  is  rendered  as  honestly  as  the  most  important,  and 
with  the  same  abandon  and  fervor.  There  are  myriads 
'of  little  by-plays  and  touches,  which  one  hardly  recognizes 
in  the  first  seeing  of  it,  the  interest  is  so  intense  and  the 
movement  so  rapid ;  but,  seeing  it  a  second  time,  one  is 
almost  more  impressed  by  these  perfections  in  minor  points 
than  by  the  rendering  of  the  chief  parts.  The  scribes  who 
sit  quietly  writing  in  the  foreground  of  the  Sanhedrim 
Court ;  the  disciples  who  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  appear- 
to  listen  while  Jesus  speaks  ;  the  money-changei's  picking 
up  their  coins  ;  the  messengers  who  come  with  only  a  word 
or  two  to  speak ;  the  soldiers  drawing  lots  among  them- 
selves in  a  group  for  Jesus'  gai'ments,  at  a  moment  when 
all  attention  might  be  supposed  to  be  concentrated  on  the 
central  figures  of  the  Crucifixion,  —  ever}T  one  of  these  acts 
with  an  enthusiasm  and  absorption  only  to  be  explained 
by  the  mingling  of  a  certain  element  of  religious  fervor 
with  native  and  long-trained  dramatic  instinct. 

This  dramatic  instinct  is  shown  almost  as  much  in  the 
tableaux  as  in  the  acting.  The  poses  and  grouping  are 
wonderful,  and  the  power  of  remaining  a  long  time  motion- 
less is  certainl}"  a  trait  which  the  Oberammergau  people 
possess  to  a  well-nigh  superhuman  extent.  The  curtain 
remained  up,  during  many  of  these  tableaux,  five  and  seven 
minutes  ;  and  there  was  not  a  trace  of  unsteadiness  to  be 
seen  in  one  of  the  characters.  Even  through  a  powerful 
glass  I  could  not  detect  so  much  as  the  twitching  of  a  muscle. 
This  is  especially  noticeable  in  the  tableau  of  the  Fall  of 
Manna  in  the  Wilderness,  which  is  one  of  the  finest  of  the 
Play.  There  are  in  it  more  than  four  hundred  persons  ;  one 
hundred  and  fifty  of  them  are  children,  some  not  over  three 
vears  of  age.  These  children  are  conspicuously  grouped 
in  the  foreground  ;  many  of  them  are  in  attitudes  which 
must  be  difficult  to  keep,  —  bent  on  one  knee  or  with  out- 
stretched hand  or  with  uplifted  face,  —  but  not  one  of  the 


PASSION  PLAY  AT  OBERAMMERGAU.        413 

little  creatures  stirs  head  or  foot  or  eye.  Neither  is  there 
to  be  seen,  as  the  curtain  begins  to  fall,  any  tremor  of 
preparation  to  move.  Motionless  as  death  they  stand  till 
the  curtain  shuts  even  their  feet  from  view.  Too  much 
praise  cannot  be  bestowed  on  the  fidelity,  accuracy,  and 
beauty  of  the  costumes.  They  are  gorgeous  in  color  and 
fabric,  and  have  been  studied  carefully  from  the  best  au- 
thorities extant,  and  are  not  the  least  among  the  surprises 
which  the  Pla}-  affords  to  all  who  go  to  see  it  expecting  it 
to  be  on  the  plane  of  ordinar}-  theatrical  representations. 
The  splendor  of  some  of  the  more  crowded  scenes  is  rarely 
equalled :  such  a  combination  of  severe  simplicity  of  out- 
lines and  contours,  classic  models  of  drapery,  with  bril- 
liancy of  coloring,  is  not  to  be  seen  in  any  other  play  now 
acted. 

The  high-water  mark  of  the  acting  in  the  Play  seems  to 
me  to  be  reached,  not  in  the  Christus,  but  b}-  Judas.  This 
part  is  pla\-ed  by  an  old  man,  Gregory  Lechner.  He  is 
over  sixty  years  of  age,  and  his  snowy  beard  and  his  hair 
have  to  be  dyed  to  the  red  hue  which  is  desired  for  the 
crafty  Judas's  face.  From  the  time  when,  in  Simon's 
house,  he  stands  by,  grumbling  at  the  waste  of  the  precious 
ointment  poured  by  Mary  Magdalene  on  the  feet  of  Jesus, 
to  the  last  moment  of  his  wretched  existence,  when  he  is 
seen  wandering  in  a  desolate  wilderness,  about  to  take  his 
own  life  in  his  remorse  and  despair,  Judas'  acting  is 
superb.  Face,  attitudes,  voice,  action, — all  are  grandly 
true  to  the  character,  and  marvellously  full  of  life.  It 
would  be  considered  splendid  acting  on  any  stage  in  the 
world.  Nothing  could  surpass  its  subtlet}'  and  fineness  of 
conception,  or  the  fire  of  its  rendering.  It  is  a  conception 
quite  unlike  those  ordinarily  held  of  the  character  of  Judas  ; 
ascribes  the  betrayal  neither  to  a  wilful,  malignant  treach- 
ery, nor,  as  is  sometimes  done,  to  a  secret  purpose  of 
forcing  Jesus  to  vindicate  his  claims  to  divine  nature  by 
working  a  miracle  of  discomfiture  to  his  enemies,  but  to 
pure,  unrestrained  avarice, — the  deadliest  passion  which 
can  get  possession  of  the  human  soul.  This  theory  is  ten- 
able at  every  point  of  Judas'  career  as  recorded  in  the 
Bible,  and  affords  far  broader  scope  for  dramatic  delinea- 
tion than  any  other  theory  of  his  character  and  conduct. 
It  is,  in  fact,  the  only  theory  which  seems  compatible  with 


414        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANY. 

the  entire  belief  in  the  supernatural  nature  of  Jesus.  Ex- 
pecting up  to  the  last  minute  that  supernatural  agencies 
would  hinder  the  accomplishment  of  the  Jews'  utmost 
malice,  he  thought  to  realize  the  full  benefit  of  the  price  of 
the  betrayal,  and  yet  not  seriously  imperil  either  the  ulti- 
mate ends  or  the  personal  safety  of  Jesus.  The  struggle 
between  the  insatiable  demon  of  avarice  in  his  heart  and 
all  the  nobler  impulses  restraining  it  is  a  struggle  which 
is  to  be  seen  going  on  in  his  thoughts  and  repeated  in  his 
face  in  every  scene  in  which  he  appears  ;  and  his  final  de- 
spair and  remorse  are  but  the  natural  culmination  of  the 
deed  which  he  did  only  under  the  temporary  control  of  a 
passion  against  which  he  was  all  the  time  struggling,  and 
which  he  himself  held  in  detestation  and  scorn.  The  ges- 
ture and  look  with  which  he  at  last  flings  down  the  bag 
of  silver  in  the  presence  of  the  assembled  Sanhedrim, 
exclaiming,  — 

"  Ye  have  made  me  a  betrayer  ! 
Release  again  the  innocent  One  !     My 
Hands  shall  be  clean," 

are  a  triumph  of  dramatic  art  never  to  be  forgotten.  His 
last  words  as  he  wanders  distraught  in  the  dark  wastes 
among  barren  trees,  are  one  of  the  finest  monologues  of 
the  Play.  It  was  written  by  the  priest  Daisenberger. 

"  Oh,  were  the  Master  there !    Oh,  could  I  see 
His  face  once  more  !     I  'd  cast  me  at  his  feet, 
And  cling  to  him,  my  only  saving  hope. 
But  now  he  lieth  in  prison,  — is,  perhaps, 
Already  murdered  by  his  raging  foe,  — 
Alas,  through  my  own  guilt,  through  my  own  guilt ! 
I  am  the  outcast  villain  who  hath  brought 
My  benefactor  to  these  bonds  and  death  ! 
The  scum  of  men  !     There  is  no  help  for  me  ! 
For  me  no  hope  !     My  crime  is  much  too  great ! 
The  learful  crime  no  penance  can  make  good  ! 
Too  late  !     Too  late  !    For  he  is  dead  —  and  I  — 
I  am  his  murderer ! 

Thrice  unhappy  hour 

In  which  my  mother  gave  me  to  the  world ! 
How  long  must  I  drag  on  this  life  of  shame, 
And  bear  these  tortures  in  my  outcast  breast  ? 
As  one  pest-stricken,  flee  the  haunts  of  men, 
And  be  despised  and  shunned  by  all  the  world  ? 
Not  one  step  farther  !     Here,  O  life  accursed,  — 
Here  will  I  end  thee ! " 


PASSION  PLAY  AT  OBERAMMERGAU.       415 

The  character  of  Christ  is,  of  necessity,  far  the  most 
difficult  part  in  the  Pla}-.  Looking  at  it  either  as  a  ren- 
dering of  the  supernatural  or  a  portraying  of  the  human 
Christ,  there  is  apparent  at  once  the  well-nigh  insurmount- 
able difficulty  in  the  way  of  actualizing  it  in  any  man's 
conception.  Only  the  very  profoundest  religious  fervor 
could  carry  any  man  through  the  effort  of  embodying  it  on 
the  theory  of  Christ's  divinh\y  ;  and  no  amount  of  atheistic 
indifference  could  cany  a  man  through  the  ghastly  mock- 
ery of  acting  it  on  any  other  theory.  Joseph  Maier,  who 
played  the  part  in  1870,  1871,  and  1880,  is  one  of  the 
best-skilled  carvers  in  the  village,  and,  it  is  said,  has 
never  carved  anything  but  figures  of  Christ.  He  is  a  man 
of  gentle  and  religious  nature,  and  is,  as  an}'  devout  Ober- 
amrnergauer  would  be,  deeply  pervaded  by  a  sense  of  the 
solemnity  of  the  function  he  performs  in  the  PLiy.  In  the 
main,  he  acts  the  part  with  wonderful  dignity  and  pathos. 
The  only  drawback  is  a  certain  undercurrent  of  self- 
consciousness  which  seems  ever  apparent  in  him.  Perhaps 
this  is  only  one  of  the  limitations  inevitably  resulting  from 
the  over-demand  which  the  part,  once  being  accepted  and 
regarded  as  a  supernatural  one,  must  perforce  make  on 
human  powers.  The  dignity  and  dramatic  unity  of  the 
Play  are  much  heightened  by  the  admirable  manner  in 
which  a  chorus  is  introduced,  somewhat  like  the  chorus  of 
the  old  Greek  plays.  It  consists  of  eighteen  singers,  with 
a  leader  styled  the  Choragus.  The  appearance  and 
functions  of  these  Sckutzgeister,  or  guardian  angels,  as 
they  are  called,  has  been  thus  admirably  described  by  a 
writer  who  has  given  the  best  detailed  account  ever  written 
of  the  Passion  Play  :  — 

"  They  have  dresses  of  various  colors,  over  which  a  white 
tunic  with  gold  fringe  and  a  colored  mantle  are  worn.  Their 
appearance  on  the  stage  is  majestic  and  solemn.  They  advance 
from  the  recesses  on  either  side  of  the  proscenium,  and  take  up 
their  position  across  the  whole  extent  of  the  theatre,  forming  a 
slightly  concave  line.  After  the  chorus  has  assumed  its  posi- 
tion, the  choragns  gives  out  in  a  dramatic  manner  the  opening 
address  or  prologue  which  introduces  each  act;  the  tone  is  im- 
mediately taken  up  by  the  whole  chorus,  which  continues  either 
in  solo,  alternately,  or  in  chorus,  until  the  curtain  is  raised  in 
order  to  reveal  a  tableau  viuant.  At  this  moment  the  choragus 
retires  a  few  steps  backward,  and  forms  with  one  half  of  the 


416        NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND  GERMANY. 

band  a  division  on  the  left  of  the  stage,  while  the  other  half 
withdraws  in  like  manner  to  the  right.  They  thus  leave  the 
centre  of  the  stage  completely  free,  and  the  spectators  have  a 
full  view  of  the  tableau  thus  revealed.  A  few  seconds  having 
been  granted  for  the  contemplation  of  this  picture,  made  more 
solemn  by  the  musical  recitation  of  the  expounders,  the  curtain 
falls  again,  and  the  two  divisions  of  the  chorus  coming  forward 
resume  their  first  position,  and  present  a  front  to  the  audience, 
observing  the  same  grace  in  all  their  motions  as  when  they 
parted.  The  chanting  still  continues,  and  points  out  the  con- 
nection between  the  picture  which  has  just  vanished  and  the 
dramatic  scene  which  is  forthwith  to  succeed.  The  singers  then 
make  their  exit.  The  task  of  these  Spirit-singers  is  resumed 
in  the  few  following  points:  They  have  to  prepare  the  audience 
for  the  approaching  scenes.  While  gratifying  the  ear  by  deli- 
cious harmonies,  they  explain  and  interpret  the  relation  which 
shadow  bears  to  substance,  —  the  connection  between  the  type 
and  its  fulfilment.  And  as  their  name  implies,  they  must  be 
ever  present  as  guardian  spirits,  as  heavenly  monitors,  during 
the  entire  performance.  The  addresses  of  the  choragus  are  all 
written  by  the  Geistlicher  Rath  Daisenberger.  They  are  writ- 
ten in  the  form  of  the  ancient  strophe  and  anti-strophe,  with 
the  difference  that  while  in  the  Greek  theatre  they  were  spoken 
by  the  different  members  of  the  chorus,  they  are  delivered  in  the 
Passion  Play  by  the  choragus  alone." 

It  is  impossible  for  any  description,  however  accurate 
and  minute,  to  give  a  just  idea  of  the  effects  produced  by 
this  chorus.  The  handling  of  it  is  perhaps  the  one  thing 
which,  more  than  any  other,  lifts  the  pla}T  to  its  high  plane 
of  dignity  and  beauty.  The  costumes  are  brilliant  in  color, 
and  strictly  classic  in  contour,  —  a  full  white  tunic,  edged 
with  gold  at  hem  and  at  throat,  and  simply  confined  at  the 
waist  by  a  loose  girdle.  Over  these  are  worn  flowing 
mantles  of  either  pale  blue,  crimson,  dull  red,  grayish 
purple,  green,  or  scarlet.  These  mantles  or  robes  are 
held  in  place  carelessly  by  a  band  of  gold  across  the 
breast.  Crowns  or  tiaras  of  gold  on  the  head  complete 
the  dress,  which,  for  simplicity  and  grace  of  outline  and 
beauty  of  coloring,  could  not  be  surpassed.  The  rhythmic 
precision  with  which  the  singers  enter,  take  place,  open 
their  lines,  and  fall  back  on  the  right  and  left,  is  a  marvel, 
until  one  learns  that  a  diagram  of  their  movement  is 
marked  out  on  the  floor,  and  that  the  mysterious  exact- 
ness and  uniformity  of  their  positions  are  simply  the  result 


PASSION  PLAY  AT  OBERAMMERGAU.       417 

of  following  each  time  the  constantly  marked  lines  on  the 
stage.  Their  motions  are  slow  and  solemn,  their  expres- 
sions exalted  and  rapt ;  they  also  ai-e  actors  in  the  grand 
scheme  of  the  Play. 

On  the  morning  of  the  Play  the  whole  village  is  astir 
before  light ;  in  fact,  the  village  proper  can  hardly  be  said 
to  have  slept  at  all,  for  seven  hundred  out  of  its  twelve 
hundred  inhabitants  are  actors  in  the  pla}-,  and  are  to  be 
ready  to  attend  a  solemn  mass  at  daylight. 

Before  eight  o'clock  ever}-  seat  in  the  theatre  is  filled. 
There  is  no  confusion,  no  noise.  The  proportion  of  those 
who  have  come  to  the  play  with  as  solemn  a  feeling  as 
they  would  have  followed  the  steps  of  the  living  Christ  in 
Judsea  is  so  large  that  the  contagion  of  their  devout  at- 
mosphere spreads  even  to  the  most  indifferent  spectators, 
commanding  quiet  and  serious  demeanor. 

The  firing  of  a  cannon  announces  the  moment  of  begin- 
ning. Slow,  swelling  strains  come  from  the  orchestra ; 
the  stately  chorus  enters  on  the  stage ;  the  music  stops ; 
the  leader  gives  a  few  words  of  prologue  or  argument,  and 
immediately  the  chorus  breaks  into  song. 

From  this  moment  to  the  end,  eight  long  hours,  with 
onlv  one  hour's  rest  at  noon,  the  movement  of  this  play 
is  continuous.  It  is  a  wonderful  instance  of  endurance 
on  the  part  of  the  actors ;  the  stage  being  entirely  un- 
covered, sun  and  rain  alike  beat  on  their  unprotected 
heads.  The  greater  part  of  the  auditorium  also  is  un- 
covered, and  there  have  been  several  instances  in  which 
the  play  has  been  performed  in  a  violent  storm  of  rain, 
thousands  of  spectators  sitting  drenched  from  beginning 
to  end  of  the  pertonntince. 

How  incomparably  the  effects  are,  in  sunny  weather, 
heightened  by  this  background  of  mountain  and  sky,  fine 
distances,  and  vistas  of  mountain  and  meadow,  and  the 
canopy  of  heaven  overhead,  it  is  impossible  to  express  ;  one 
only  wonders,  on  seeing  it,  that  outdoor  theatres  have  not 
become  a  common  summer  pleasure  for  the  whole  world. 

When  birds  fly  over,  they  cast  fluttering  shadows  of 
their  wings  on  the  front  of  Pilate's  and  Caiaphas'  homes, 
as  naturally  as  did  Judfean  sparrows  two  thousand  years 
ago.  Even  butterflies  flitting  past  cast  their  tiny  shade 
on  the  stage ;  one  bird  paused,  hovered,  as  if  pondering 
27 


418          NORWAY,  DENMARK,  AND   GERMANS. 

what  it  all  could  mean,  circled  two  or  three  times  over  the 
heads  of  the  multitude,  and  then  alighted  on  one  of  the 
wall-posts  and  watched  for  some  t:'uc.  Great  banks  of 
white  cumulus  clouds  gathered  and  rested,  dissolved  and 
floated  away,  as  the  morning  grew  to  noonda}*,  and  the 
noonday  wore  on  toward  night,.  This  closeness  of  Nature 
is  an  accessor)-  of  illimitable  effect ;  the  visible  presence 
of  the  sky  seems  a  witness  to  invisible  presences  beyond 
it,  and  a  direct  bond  with  them.  There  must  be  many  a 
soul,  I  am  sure,  who  has  felt  closer  to  the  world  of  spirit- 
ual existences,  while  listening  to  the  music  of  the  Ober- 
ammergau  Passion  Play,  than  in  any  other  hour  of  his  life  ; 
and  who  can  never,  so  long  as  he  lives,  read  without 
emotion  the  closing  words  of  the  venerable  Daisenberger's 
little  "•  History  of  Oberammergau  :  "  - 

"  May  the  strangers  who  come  to  this  Holy  Passion  Play  be- 
come, by  reading  this  book,  more  friendly  with  Ammergau;  and 
may  it  sometimes,  after  they  have  returned  to  their  homes, 
renew  in  them  the  memory  of  this  quiet  mountain  valley." 


University  Press  :  John  Wilson  &  Son,  Cambridge. 


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COP.JJ, 


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•pllllll 


ALIFORNIA, 


CALIF. 


